News Briefing Human receives pig kidney Inamedical milestone, a genetically modified pig kidney has been successfully transplanted into a living human, reports Grace Wade SURGEONS have transplanted apigidney intoa 62:yearold rmanliving with end-stage kidney disease. As NewsScientist went to press the reipient, Richard Slayman, was recovering welland was expected tobe discharged from the hospital within days Isthisthe fst ever pig kidney transplant? ‘This isthe first times pig kidney hasbeen transplanted intoa living human, which makes ita significant milestone in thefield of xenotransplantaton,orthe tuansferofanimalorgansto Fhumans."Thesuccess of this transplant isthe culmination of efforts by thousands ofsclentists and physicians over seve decades” sald Tatsuo Kawalat Massachusetts General Hospital {mastatement,“Ourhopeis that this transplant approach will offeralifelineto milionsof patients worldwide whoare suffering from kidney failure” Stritiy speaking, however, this is’ the first ever pigsto- laumankidney transplant. The procedure has been performed fivetimes inthe past, alin ‘The most recent ofthesetook place in july 2023 by Robert “Montgomery at NYU Langone Health andhis colleagues. That kidney functioned for more thanamonth without signs of rejection or infection ‘when ithe surgery takeplace? Kawalandhiscolleagues performedthe surgery on 16March-Theprocedurelasted hours, andthe kidney began Tre pi tcheybeng remavedomitsboxto prepare for ransplantation solNewscintst yo March2004 producingurine and the waste product creatinine soon ater, according to reporting by The New York Times. layman has alsobeen abletostop dialysis, ‘further indication that the kidney functioning well Where the kidney come trom? The organ was provided by the pharmaceutical company Genesis, which breeds pigs genetically engineeredtocamry certain human genes andto lack aparticularset ofpiggenes that areharmfulto humans. These geneticmodifications reduce thelikelihood oftransplant rection when the immune systemattacks theorganand causes tto fall Slaymanisalso receivingacocktallofimmune suppressing drugs ofurther lower this risk Sofar,there iso sign ofrejection and slaymanis abletowalkonbisown, Wnatdo we know about therecipient? layman has ype2 diabetes, high blood pressure nd kidney disease. He had previously received human kidney froma donorin December 2018. However, the organshowed signs offallureabout five years later. He started dialysis in May last year, but ex ‘complications, tothehospitalevery two weeks. More than 100,000 people intheUSarewaitingforan ‘organ transplant, 170f whom dieeach day. The USFood and Drug Administration authorised the experimental ‘transplant forSlayman duetoa lack o other treatment options. saw itnot only asa way to help me, but away to provide hope forthe thousands of people who needa transplant to survive! saldSlayman inastatement Have there been similar procedures withother organs? ‘Only twooother people have ‘undergone a xenotransplant, Dothof whom received a ‘genetically modified pig heart, Thetitsta man named David Bennet died two months later, potentially due to complications fromapig virus ealled porcine ‘cytomegalovirus So, scientists ‘genetically inactivated this and similarvirusesin the pigthat Slayman’s kidney eame fom. Thesecond recipient, aman named Lawrence Faucete, died from transplant rejection six ‘weeksafterhissurgery. ; ! Technology Robotdesigns better paper planes thanahuman Alex Wilkins ‘AROBOT can design, build and test objects made from folded ape, suchas planes, better ‘than ahuranif given the same ‘umber of attempt, Robotic laboratoriescan test ‘and design materials fr faster ‘than humans, but they often rely foncomputer simulations tocut ‘down onreal-word testing for ‘therobot. However, tis doesn't ‘work when testing objects that ‘are cifficutt and computationally ‘expensive to simulate, suchas fluids ‘ordeformable materials ke paper. Now, Ruoshi Liuat Columbia University in New York and his colleagues have developed a robotic testing platform, called PPaperBot that can design objects ‘made rom paper without needing ‘computer simulations. ‘We wanted to design tootsin ‘thephnysical word iecty instead ‘fin the simulation, because in this way we can model many more realistic behaviours that are hard tosimulaty'saysLiu. ‘Tomake aplane, the rbot is fist given a roughoutine fora folded paper design, but is alowed ‘ovary the length and width of the wings. The robot then folds the plane, chooses launch angle and ‘throws. After measuring how far {ties therobot adjusts the design using a machine leering algorithm ‘and tres again. "PaperBot works very similarly tohow humans d things” says Liu “We try random, itferent designs ‘and then ourmemories remember ‘hat the good ones and the bad ‘ones ook tke, and we try to find pattern there ‘Aer 100 tials, which took about 3 hours, PaperBot's best plane design tew further than thebest plane designed bya person giventhe samenumberof attemptsat optimising the wing design before letting the robot arm ‘throw t(arkv dokorotmnsk)