Alabama woman who is only person in the world with a functioning pig organ reaches record 2-month milestone

An Alabama pistillate who is the lone surviving recipient of a pig organ transplant passed a large milestone connected Saturday erstwhile she became the longest surviving idiosyncratic with a functioning pig organ.

Towana Looney, 53, remains steadfast and afloat of energy, reaching the grounds 61-day people with her pig kidney connected Saturday.

"I’m superwoman," Looney told The Associated Press. "It’s a caller instrumentality connected life."

Only 4 different Americans person received experimental transplants of gene-edited pig organs — 2 receiving a bosom portion the different 2 received a kidney — but nary of them lived much than 2 months.

WOMAN RECEIVES PIG KIDNEY TRANSPLANT, WALKS OUT OF HOSPITAL DAYS LATER: 'SECOND CHANCE'

Towana Looney, who received a pig kidney transplant successful November 2024, goes implicit notes astir her betterment with Dr. Jeffrey Stern astatine NYU Langone Health successful New York, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP)

"If you saw her connected the street, you would person nary thought that she’s the lone idiosyncratic successful the satellite walking astir with a pig organ wrong them that’s functioning," Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led Looney’s transplant, said.

Montgomery said Looney’s kidney relation is "absolutely normal." She has been staying successful New York temporarily truthful she tin person post-transplant checkups, but doctors anticipation she tin instrumentality to her location successful Gadsden, Alabama, successful astir a month.

"We’re rather optimistic that this is going to proceed to enactment and enactment good for, you know, a important play of time," Montgomery said.

Scientists are genetically altering pigs, truthful their organs are much human-like to enactment a terrible shortage of quality organs that tin beryllium utilized for transplants. 

More than 100,000 radical are connected the U.S. transplant list. Most of these individuals request a kidney, and thousands dice waiting.

The Food and Drug Administration lone allows pig organ transplants successful peculiar circumstances for radical who person tally retired of different alternatives.

Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the world’s archetypal pig kidney transplant past twelvemonth and works with different pig developer, eGenesis, said however good Looney does is simply a "very precious experience."

Towana Looney sits for an NYU Langone Health property league connected Tuesday, December 17, 2024. (Fox News)

Looney was acold healthier than erstwhile pig organ recipients, according to Kawai, who said her advancement volition assistance pass doctors astir aboriginal attempts.

"We person to larn from each other," helium said.

Looney donated a kidney to her parent successful 1999 and aboriginal gestation complications caused precocious humor unit that damaged her remaining kidney, which yet failed, a uncommon condition among surviving donors.

She spent 8 years connected dialysis earlier doctors determined she was improbable to person a donated organ, arsenic she had developed precise precocious levels of antibodies abnormally primed to onslaught different quality kidney.

Looney, seeking an alternative, wanted to effort retired the pig organ experiment. Nobody knew however it would enactment successful idiosyncratic "highly sensitized" with the overactive antibodies.

Montgomery’s squad has intimately tracked Looney's betterment done humor tests and different measurements since the Nov. 25 surgery. About 3 weeks aft the transplant, subtle signs were detected that rejection was beginning. They knew to look for these signs due to the fact that of a 2023 experimentation erstwhile a pig kidney worked for 61 days wrong a deceased antheral whose assemblage was donated for research.

MASSACHUSETTS MAN, RECIPIENT OF FIRST SUCCESSFUL PIG KIDNEY TRANSPLANT, IS DISCHARGED FROM HOSPITAL

Outside the NYU Langone Health exigency country entranceway connected April 6, 2020, successful New York City. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)

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Montgomery said his squad successfully treated Looney and determination person not been signs of rejection since.

It is intolerable to foretell however agelong Looney’s caller kidney volition work. But if it were to fail, she could person dialysis again.

"The information is we don’t truly cognize what the adjacent hurdles are due to the fact that this is the archetypal clip we’ve gotten this far," Montgomery said. "We’ll person to proceed to truly support a adjacent oculus connected her."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.