The cause of death of the first man to receive a pig heart transplant has remained unclear, as the team behind the transplant have published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.
While the team are still investigating the mechanisms that could underlie the patient's cause of death, they say they have determined it was not due to rejection of the organ.
The transplant had been made possible using genome editing (see BioNews 1128), which aimed to prevent rejection. However, the team announced they had discovered the presence of porcine cytomegalovirus in the patient David Bennett – a man with end-stage heart failure – raising questions about whether that had caused the death (see BioNews 1144).
Meanwhile, Nature has reported that US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed small trials for pig-to-human organs transplants are necessary to answer outstanding questions about their suitability.