Today a team associated with the biotech startup eGenesis published an article in Science demonstrating gene editing techniques that allowed for the cloning of 15 retrovirus-free piglets.
The breakthrough might one day soon allow for the use of pig organs for human transplant. What a fantastic time to be alive!
About 22 Americans die each day waiting for a transplant. Making human-compatible pig organs could go a long way toward alleviating the shortage of transplant organs.
Pig organs are essentially the right size for transplantation to replace damaged organs in humans. Unfortunately, there are two problems standing in the way. First, human immune systems speedily reject transplated pig organs. And second, the genomes of pigs are loaded up with endogenous retroviruses (PERV) that might become activated and cause diseases after organs have been transplanted...
Read more at:
http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/10/transplant-organs-from-gene-edited-pigs
