Alabama woman is recovering well after receiving a pig kidney, doctors say

Towana Looney says her experimental procedure and transplant is ‘like a new beginning’

An Alabama woman is doing well after she received a pig kidney transplant last month, doctors have said.

Towana Looney is the fifth American to be given a gene-edited pig organ. The experimental procedure was done at New York’s NYU Langone Transplant Institute last month.

“It’s like a new beginning,” Looney, 53, told The Associated Press.

Right away, she said, “the energy I had was amazing. To have a working kidney — and to feel it — is unbelievable.”

Looney isn’t as sick as prior recipients who died within two months of receiving a kidney or heart from a pig.

The transplant freed her from eight years of dialysis. Doctors expect her to return home to Alabama in three months. If the kidney were to fail, she could begin dialysis again.

Pig kidney recipient Towana Looney stands with transplant surgeons Dr. Jayme Locke, left, and Dr. Robert Montgomery of New York City’s NYU Langone Health. Looney is recovering well ((AP Photo/Shelby Lum))

“To see hope restored to her and her family is extraordinary,” Dr. Jayme Locke, Looney’s original surgeon who secured Food and Drug Administration permission for the November 25 transplant, told the news agency.

She was discharged from the hospital 11 days after surgery to recover in a nearby apartment, although she was temporarily readmitted this week while her medications are adjusted.

The surgery marks an important step ahead of formal studies of xenotransplantation — any procedure that involves transplanting living cells, tissues, or organs from a non-human animal into a human recipient — that are expected to begin next year.

Montgomery looks at a monitor during the gene-edited pig kidney transplant surgery in November. He led the experimental procedure ((Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health via AP))

More than 100,000 people are on the US transplant list. The majority are waiting for kidneys. Thousands of people die waiting and many never qualify.

Looney, who donated a kidney to her mother 25 years ago, experienced a complication during pregnancy that had damaged her remaining kidney. It eventually failed.

But she couldn’t get a match because she had developed antibodies abnormally primed to attack another human kidney. Tests showed she’d reject every kidney that could be offered.

The gene-edited pig kidney is seen moments after blood vessels are reattached. More than 100,000 people are on the US transplant list ((Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health via AP))

So, in April 2023, Locke filed an application for an emergency experiment. Eventually, the Food and Drug Administration allowed her transplant. There, Locke collaborated with Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the procedure.

The kidney Looney received has 10 gene alterations. The Virginia-based therapeutics company Revivicor provided the organ.

Looney with Jayme Locke earlier this month. The patient said the energy she had since the operation was ‘amazing’ ((AP Photo/Shelby Lum))

Since her release earlier this month, Looney has been closely monitored. She returns to the hospital for daily checkups.

“A lot of what we’re seeing, we’re seeing for the first time,” Montgomery said.

With reporting from The Associated Press