Hope for liver failure patients..Pig liver successfully passes blood filter test for brain dead man

Hope for liver failure patients.. 

Pig liver successfully passes blood filtering

 test outside a man's brain dead body

Pig liver surgeons were linked, externally, to a brain dead human body and watched

 as it succeeded in filtering the blood, an important step towards eventually

 experimenting with this technique on patients with liver failure.

The University of 

Pennsylvania announced the new experiment 

as a different experiment on animal-to-human transplants.

In this case

the pig liver was used outside the donor body

not inside

which is a way to create a "bridge" to support the failed liver by doing blood

 cleaning work for the organ externally, just like dialysis in case of kidney failure.

Transplants from animal to human

called xenotransplants

have failed for decades because humans' immune systems rejected alien tissues.

 Now scientists are trying again with pigs whose organs have been genetically

 modified to be more human-like.

In recent years

kidneys from GM pigs have been temporarily transplanted into

 brain-deceased donors to see how well they work

and two men have received heart transplants from pigs

despite their deaths within months.

The US Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to 

allow a small number of Americans who need a new organ to volunteer

 for careful studies either on pigs' hearts or kidneys.

Some researchers also

 look forward to using pig liver, although the liver has

 different complications from the kidneys and heart, it filters blood

 removes waste

 and produces materials for other body functions.

In the Pennsylvania experiment, researchers attached a pig liver

a genetically modified liver by the biotechnology company eGenesis

to a device manufactured by the medical device company OrganOx 

that helps preserve the human liver donated before the transplant.

The deceased's family, whose body organs were not suitable for donation

awarded the body for scientific research. The organs maintained

 blood circulation in the body.

During last month's trial, blood was filtered through a 72-hour pig liver device. 

The Pennsylvania team reported in a statement that the donor's 

body remained stable and the pig's liver showed no signs of damage.