
Woman who received pig kidney transplant and heart pump dies
CNN
Lisa Pisano, the first person to receive a mechanical heart pump as well as a gene-edited pig kidney, died Sunday, according to NYU Langone Health, where she had the surgery.
Lisa Pisano, the first person to receive a mechanical heart pump as well as a gene-edited pig kidney, died Sunday, according to NYU Langone Health, where she had the surgery. Pisano received the transplant on April 12, but the organ failed due to limited blood flow and was removed May 29. Her case was the first reported organ transplant in a person with a mechanical heart pump, NYU Langone said, the second known transplant of a gene-edited pig kidney into a living recipient and the first transplanted along with the animal’s thymus gland. Pisano was brave and altruistic, Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, said in a statement Tuesday. She had said during a news conference after the procedure that even if the organ transplant didn’t work for her, it might for the next person. “At least somebody is going to benefit from it,” she said.