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.

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“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.”

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.

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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.