“Transplanted heart valves routinely come from pigs as well as cows,” says the Los Angeles Times, but it’s not as simple to use swine organs for people who need kidneys, livers or lungs. Besides the usual challenges of transplanting organs, scientists face the problem of retroviruses carried in pig cells and produced under stress. “And here’s where a bit of unexpected help could come from a new gene-editing technique – the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which has made faster, more efficient and more precise the task of paring, replacing and improving problematic genes from DNA,” says the Los Angeles Times. The technique was co-invented by Jennifer Doudna of the University of California.
The journal Science says the technology allows “a one-step inactivation of more than 60 copies” of the retroviruses and greatly reduces the risk of infection. The approach is a step toward xenotransplantation. For all the success, said the Los Angeles Times, “Pigs are hardly close to providing the solution to the world’s massive shortage of donor organs.” The immune system often attacks foreign tissue.