Second Maryland Man to Receive an Altered Pig’s Heart Has Died
By Roni Caryn Rabin,
The New York Times
| 10. 31. 2023
A 58-year-old man with heart failure who received a new heart from a genetically modified pig died on Monday, nearly six weeks after receiving the pig organ, University of Maryland Medical Center officials announced on Tuesday.
Lawrence Faucette, of Frederick, Md., was the second patient at the medical center to have had an ailing heart replaced with one from a pig that had been genetically modified so its organs would be more compatible with a human recipient and would not be rejected by the human immune system.
The first patient, 57-year-old David Bennett, died last year, two months after his transplant. He had developed multiple complications, and traces of a virus that infects pigs were found in his new heart.
Both of the patients had terminal heart disease when they received the transplanted organs, and neither managed to recover sufficiently to leave the hospital. But while doctors said that Mr. Bennett did not show any signs of acute rejection of the new heart, which is the most significant risk in organ transplants, they said that Mr. Faucette’s transplanted heart had...
Related Articles
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Katherine Drabiak, Journal of Medical Ethics Forum | 08.07.2025
Adapted from Mitochondrial DNA at
National Human Genome Research Institute
Recently, media outlets around the world have been reporting on children born from pronuclear genome transfer (sometimes called “3-parent IVF,” “mitochondrial donation” or “mitochondrial replacement therapy”) at Newcastle Fertility Center...
By Nicky Hudson, The Conversation | 08.12.2025