Could Pig Lungs be Suitable for Human Transplants?

Researchers announced Tuesday that they have come up with a way to create working human lungs from pigs.

"Our new collaboration is huge for accelerating our efforts to cure end-stage lung disease," said Martine Rothblatt, chairman and chief executive officer of Silver Spring, Maryland-based United Therapeutics, via CBC News.

It's estimated that around 400,000 people die each year from various forms of lung disease, while only around 2,000 are saved with a lung transplant.

Previous studies have incorporated the use of organs in people in need of transplants, otherwise known as xenotransplantation. Unfortunately, these failed due to differences in the genome that created organ rejection and blood clots.

"Our new collaboration with Synthetic Genomics is huge for accelerating our efforts to cure end-stage lung disease," Martine Rothblatt, chairman and chief executive officer of Silver Spring, Maryland-based United Therapeutics, via a press release.

As human pigs and many other mammals share around 90 percent of the same genes, Venter's team worked to determine certain aspects of the pig genome needed to be altered to make porcine lungs compatible with humans and avoid the rejection of the tissues.

"We are pleased to be partnering with Lung Biotechnology and United Therapeutics to advance organ transplantation," said Venter, Ph.D., the founder and chief executive of Synthetic Genomics Inc., via the Wall Street Journal. "We believe that our proprietary synthetic genomic tools and technologies, coupled with United Therapeutics' knowledge and advances in regenerative medicine technologies and treatment of lung diseases, should enable us to develop humanized pig organs for safe and effective transplant into humans. We believe this is one of the most exciting and important programs ever undertaken in modern medical science."

For the next step, researchers hope to identify all parts of the pig's genome that would be ideally compatible with humans.

"We're going to start with generating a brand new super-accurate sequence of the pig genome, and then go through in detail and compare it to the human genome," Venter added. "The goal is to go in and edit, and where necessary, rewrite using our synthetic genomic tools, the pig genes that seem to be associated with immune responses. We want to get it so there is no acute or chronic rejection."

Synthetic Genomics Inc. will be in charge of editing and rewriting the pig's genome. These results will then be presented to the team from United Therapeutics, who will take altered cells and implant them into pig eggs. However, this process may take years.