Health
Alabama woman who is only person in the world with a functioning pig organ reaches record 2-month milestone
An Alabama woman who is the only living recipient of a pig organ transplant passed a major milestone on Saturday when she became the longest living person with a functioning pig organ.
Towana Looney, 53, remains healthy and full of energy, reaching the record 61-day mark with her pig kidney on Saturday.
“I’m superwoman,” Looney told The Associated Press. “It’s a new take on life.”
Only four other Americans have received experimental transplants of gene-edited pig organs — two receiving a heart while the other two received a kidney — but none of them lived more than two months.
WOMAN RECEIVES PIG KIDNEY TRANSPLANT, WALKS OUT OF HOSPITAL DAYS LATER: ‘SECOND CHANCE’
Towana Looney, who received a pig kidney transplant in November 2024, goes over notes about her recovery with Dr. Jeffrey Stern at NYU Langone Health in New York, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. (AP)
“If you saw her on the street, you would have no idea that she’s the only person in the world walking around with a pig organ inside them that’s functioning,” Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led Looney’s transplant, said.
Montgomery said Looney’s kidney function is “absolutely normal.” She has been staying in New York temporarily so she can receive post-transplant checkups, but doctors hope she can return to her home in Gadsden, Alabama, in about a month.
“We’re quite optimistic that this is going to continue to work and work well for, you know, a significant period of time,” Montgomery said.
Scientists are genetically altering pigs, so their organs are more human-like to support a severe shortage of human organs that can be used for transplants.
More than 100,000 people are on the U.S. transplant list. Most of these individuals need a kidney, and thousands die waiting.
The Food and Drug Administration only allows pig organ transplants in special circumstances for people who have run out of other alternatives.
Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the world’s first pig kidney transplant last year and works with another pig developer, eGenesis, said how well Looney does is a “very precious experience.”
Towana Looney sits for an NYU Langone Health press conference on Tuesday, December 17, 2024. (Fox News)
Looney was far healthier than previous pig organ recipients, according to Kawai, who said her progress will help inform doctors about future attempts.
“We have to learn from each other,” he said.
Looney donated a kidney to her mother in 1999 and later pregnancy complications caused high blood pressure that damaged her remaining kidney, which eventually failed, a rare circumstance among living donors.
She spent eight years on dialysis before doctors determined she was unlikely to receive a donated organ, as she had developed very high levels of antibodies abnormally primed to attack another human kidney.
Looney, seeking an alternative, wanted to try out the pig organ experiment. Nobody knew how it would work in someone “highly sensitized” with the overactive antibodies.
Montgomery’s team has closely tracked Looney’s recovery through blood tests and other measurements since the Nov. 25 surgery. About three weeks after the transplant, subtle signs were detected that rejection was beginning. They knew to look for these signs because of a 2023 experiment when a pig kidney worked for 61 days inside a deceased man whose body was donated for research.
MASSACHUSETTS MAN, RECIPIENT OF FIRST SUCCESSFUL PIG KIDNEY TRANSPLANT, IS DISCHARGED FROM HOSPITAL
Outside the NYU Langone Health emergency room entrance on April 6, 2020, in New York City. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)
Montgomery said his team successfully treated Looney and there have not been signs of rejection since.
It is impossible to predict how long Looney’s new kidney will work. But if it were to fail, she could receive dialysis again.
“The truth is we don’t really know what the next hurdles are because this is the first time we’ve gotten this far,” Montgomery said. “We’ll have to continue to really keep a close eye on her.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Surviving cancer as a child or young adult may have a lasting impact on aging, new research suggests.
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center looked at whether life-saving treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation, could speed up biological aging.
They also aimed to determine whether this age acceleration was linked to cognitive issues related to memory, focus and learning.
The team analyzed blood samples from a group of 1,400 long-term survivors treated at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, using epigenetic clocks — tools that estimate biological age by examining chemical tags on DNA.
Biological age is determined based on damage the cells accumulate over time, versus chronological age, which is measured by how long someone has been alive, according to scientists.
Biological age is determined based on the damage cells accumulate over time, according to scientists. (iStock)
“These well-established aging-related biomarkers have previously been associated with neurocognitive impairment and decline in older non-cancer populations, particularly in cognitive domains related to aging and dementia, such as memory, attention and executive function,” the study stated.
Most of the group consisted of acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivors, or Hodgkin lymphoma survivors. Participants were at least five years past their treatment, though some had survived for several decades.
They underwent neurocognitive testing to measure their attention span, memory and information processing speed.
CREATIVE HOBBIES KEEP THE BRAIN YOUNG, STUDY FINDS — HERE ARE THE BEST ONES TO PURSUE
Chemotherapy was found to have the greatest impact on aging acceleration. The study suggests the treatment can alter DNA structure and cause cellular damage.
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“It’s no surprise to find out that young people with cancer who have chemo early in life are affected in terms of long-term aging,” Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News, told Fox News Digital.
Participants underwent neurocognitive testing to measure their attention span, memory and speed of information processing. (iStock)
Researchers also found that cellular aging was closely linked to cognitive performance, as survivors of a higher biological age had more difficulty with memory and attention.
“Chemo poisons and damages cellular function — hopefully the cancer cells more than normal cells, but there is a significant impact on normal cells as well,” said Siegel, who was not involved in the study.
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“There is also something called ‘chemo brain,’ which causes at least temporary difficulty with memory, concentration, word finding and brain fog,” the doctor added.
The research team hopes to use these findings to focus on intervention efforts, specifically by determining when accelerated aging begins.
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“Young cancer survivors have many more decades of life to live,” lead study author AnnaLynn Williams, PhD, said in a press release. “If these accelerated aging changes are occurring early on and setting them on a different trajectory, the goal is to intervene to not only increase their lifespan, but improve their quality of life.”
The team hopes this research will help in the development of early intervention tools that aim to prevent cognitive decline. (iStock)
There were some limitations to the study. The researchers could not adjust for chronic health conditions or education because they are directly impacted by treatment.
Additionally, the study only looked at the survivors at a single point of time, so it could not directly prove causation.
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The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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A popular class of weight-loss drugs may prevent life-threatening cardiac complications by opening microscopic blood vessels that often remain blocked after a heart attack, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications.
The research, led by the University of Bristol and University College London, identified a biological brain-gut-heart signaling pathway.
This discovery appears to explain how GLP-1 drugs — which mimic glucagon-like peptide-1, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar and appetite — protect heart tissue from a condition known as “no-reflow.”
“In nearly half of all heart attack patients, tiny blood vessels within the heart muscle remain narrowed, even after the main artery is cleared during emergency medical treatment,” Dr. Svetlana Mastitskaya, the study’s lead author and a senior lecturer at Bristol Medical School, said in a press release.
“This results in a complication known as ‘no-reflow,’ where blood is unable to reach certain parts of the heart tissue.”
In nearly half of all heart attack patients, tiny capillaries (blood vessels) remain narrowed even after the main blocked artery is cleared. (iStock)
This lack of blood flow increases the risk of heart failure and death within a year. GLP-1 medications could prevent this, according to the researchers.
How it works
When the GLP-1 hormone is released in the gut or administered as a drug, it sends a signal to the brain, which then sends a signal to the heart that switches on special potassium channels in tiny cells called pericytes.
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When these channels open, the pericytes relax, which allows the small blood vessels (capillaries) to widen and improve blood flow to the heart muscle, the researchers noted.
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The new study used animal models and cellular imaging to track how GLP-1 interacts with heart tissue. When the researchers removed the potassium channels, the drugs no longer protected the heart — confirming they play a key role.
The findings suggest that existing GLP-1 medications, already used for type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be repurposed as emergency treatments. (iStock)
The findings suggest that existing GLP-1 medications, already used for type 2 diabetes and obesity, could be repurposed as emergency treatments during or immediately after a heart attack to reduce tissue damage.
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The researchers noted several limitations, including that the study relied on animal models.
Clinical trials are necessary to determine whether the brain-gut-heart pathway operates with the same timing and efficacy in humans.
While the study highlights the drug’s immediate benefits during a heart attack, it des not establish whether long-term use of these drugs provides a pre-existing level of protection. (iStock)
Additionally, while the study highlights the drug’s immediate benefits during a heart attack, it does not establish whether long-term use of the medication provides a pre-existing level of protection.
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The research was primarily funded by the British Heart Foundation.
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