Overview
- Researchers in Canada and China used enzymes to strip A-group antigens from a type A kidney, rendering it functionally similar to type O.
- The modified organ was implanted into a brain-dead recipient with family consent and functioned for several days with a milder immune response than typical rejection.
- Signals of A-type blood markers reappeared on day three, a phenomenon the team identifies as the main technical challenge to address.
- The work, more than a decade in development, was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and marks the first observation of this approach in a human model.
- Teams plan additional experiments and staged clinical phases, particularly in living recipients, as they assess safety and potential to ease transplant wait times that see daily deaths in the United States and large backlogs in Mexico.