The Man with the Pig Kidney - Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta - Podcast on CNN Podcasts

CNN

27-06-2025

Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:00:08
On January 25th, 2025 Tim Andrews became a medical pioneer.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:00:17
He received a pig kidney transplant. Now, while he was not the first, he does hope that his and the contributions of many others means that he also won't be the last.
Tim Andrews
00:00:29
Stepping forward, you're gonna do something for humanity. This is a way that we can bring this forward. And this is the hope for all these people that it's gonna be okay. We're gonna find a way.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:00:45
It's been an incredible journey of an incredible man and an incredible scientific achievement. And this may only be the beginning. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and this is part two of Animal Farm. It's been just seven days since Tim Andrews received a pig kidney.
Tim Andrews
00:01:10
I'm a crier. They all know it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:01:12
He's understandably emotional. Once tethered to a dialysis machine for survival, Tim is now free.
Tim Andrews
00:01:19
Oh, it's nice
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:01:25
There's that great shot of you as you're walking out of the hospital and you're fresh air in it. It almost seemed like you were breathing air for the first time.
Tim Andrews
00:01:34
Yeah, it kind of felt like it had been a long time since I had been outside, really.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:01:43
And by leaving the hospital so soon, Tim was making history.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:01:47
You wanted to get out as quickly as possible. Yes. And you wanted to be Towana
Tim Andrews
00:01:53
Yeah
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:02:00
'Tawana is Towana Looney, a 53-year-old Alabama grandmother who underwent a pig kidney transplant two months earlier. So how you feeling? Dr. Robert Montgomery was her surgeon.
Towana Looney
00:02:12
You know what the first thing I'm gonna do when I get home? What's that? Cook me some greens. Some greens? Like your wife sent me.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:02:21
She had been on dialysis for nine years, waiting for an organ transplant.
Dr. Robert Mongtomery
00:02:25
If you're on dialysis for five years, you have a 50% mortality. You start going beyond that and your likelihood of living gets less and less. Alright, and the kidney is right inside this bag.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:02:41
Towana volunteered for a Xenotransplant.
Dr. Robert Mongtomery
00:02:45
It was exciting. She wants to start a revolution, too, herself. I mean, she really believes in this.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:02:52
So much so that Towana helped make Tim Andrews a believer as well. Because along the way, when Tim had had his doubts, he called the only living person in the world who had gone through this.
Tim Andrews
00:03:04
Hearing her saying, you know, just trust God, just trust God. It'll be okay. That made me feel easier.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:03:15
It has now been 60 days since his transplant, and Tim is settling back into life in Concord, New Hampshire. Today, we decided to bundle up and go for a walk. It's interesting because you say you feel better.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:03:28
No question about it, right?
Tim Andrews
00:03:29
Absolutely no question about it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:03:31
What does that mean exactly? What feels better?
Tim Andrews
00:03:35
Energy. I have energy. Whoop. I'm a little wobbly though. Ha ha ha ha. We got you. But I feel so much better and clearer.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:03:49
None of this is easy. Taking 20 milligrams, they're fives. I mean, every day Tim sits at this makeshift mountain of medication guided by this big binder. It's a survival Bible of sorts.
Tim Andrews
00:04:01
This is the book. Tells you what you're gonna take. We keep it in pencil because it changes a lot.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:04:09
Another reminder of how new this all is, there is a lot of experimentation with the right mix of meds and doses. In all, Tim takes 52 pills a day.
Tim Andrews
00:04:19
And this is when it helps to be a 70s child. Ready?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:04:25
'And several times a week an anti-rejection infusion directly into his blood. We were there for his two-month checkup as he had a battery of tests to look for any signs of infection, rejection, or reduced function.
Doctor
00:04:45
We can actually identify if there's any issues with the kidney.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:04:49
'Worried about Tim's heart, the Boston medical team is also monitoring him 24-7 with this implanted loop recorder. It measures Tim's cardiac rhythm and warns of any potential abnormalities.
Doctor
00:05:01
We're of course being just extra careful and cautious and ensuring things are in the right direction.
Tim Andrews
00:05:08
And the little pig is right there so I can pat it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:05:11
Today's visit is all about this moment. Observing this ultrasound, that is an ultrasound of a pig kidney inside Tim. Something that very few people ever get to see.
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:05:21
And it looks exactly like a human kidney, so let me see all the blood flow throughout.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:05:27
Is there anything in there that makes.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:05:29
It clear that it's a pig kidney?
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:05:30
No, exactly like a human one.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:05:32
'And not only does it look like one, eight weeks post-operatively, it's acting like one.
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:05:37
But the level of kidney function is as good as we would expect from a human kidney transplant. We just are amazed every day we look at that blowwork. That's awesome good stuff, isn't it?
Tim Andrews
00:05:49
No, no, no.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:05:51
Now there is one complication they're watching for very carefully, something that is unique to xenotransplants and could affect not only Tim, but his wife Karen as well, maybe all of us.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:06:05
One of the concerns is that if there is some sort of weird or strange virus in the pig and it gets into the human population through one of these transplants, might not only affect the patient, but people around the patient as well.
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:06:16
In all the studies that we're doing, we're not only monitoring the patient, but their close contacts.
Tim Andrews
00:06:22
Because we don't know to this day, and we won't know for the rest of my life whether that can happen. So that's always in the background.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:06:33
Talking to scientists, this is one of their biggest concerns, accidentally unleashing a pig virus onto a susceptible human population. To avoid that they screen extensively, they even edit the genome of the pigs to inactivate those viruses. But the question is is that enough?
Art Kaplan
00:06:53
Genetic engineering is a nice tool, but it's not 100% accurate yet.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:06:58
'World-renowned medical ethicist, Art Kaplan. Is it a big enough concern to sort of derail?
Art Kaplan
00:07:04
No, I don't think so. I think it's a reason to be cautious, to really detect a problem early and then be able to shut it down or respond.
Kathy Guillermo
00:07:14
I think it's a little bit of Russian roulette here.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:07:17
Kathy Guillermo is the Senior VP at PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and she thinks this is a big issue.
Kathy Guillermo
00:07:25
I think when it comes to viruses and animals, there's so much that we don't know. There are people who, in addition to PETA, are opposed to these experiments for that reason.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:07:34
Now to be clear, there is nothing about xenotransplants that sits well with Kathy or anyone else at PETA.
Kathy Guillermo
00:07:41
I don't think it could ever be okay to use an animal as a source of spare parts. For that animal, this is a life of deprivation. It's an early death. It's much suffering. And I don't think that's ever okay.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:07:56
Even if it means a choice between a pig life or a human death.
Kathy Guillermo
00:08:00
'This was a situation my father was presented with, and my father was over 80, so he was not eligible for a transplant. And my father did die of end-stage renal disease, and he would not have taken an organ from a pig for ethical reasons.
Art Kaplan
00:08:14
I think what the mainstream position will become among those caring about animals, loving animals, is that we're gonna tolerate this, we're going to look for alternatives to it that they would find more acceptable.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:08:31
And then there are the religious concerns.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:08:33
You have certain religions, Muslim religion, Jewish religion, who they won't eat pork. They don't eat pigs. Is transplanting a pig organ different in some way than consuming?
Art Kaplan
00:08:46
You know, eating it. It's somewhat contentious. I, however, don't think that you're gonna see huge religious opposition. But you may see in some of the Islamic countries is human organs first, only go to the animal last resort. I could see that.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:09:04
A spiritual man, Tim also had his concerns. It's why he reached out to his church for guidance.
Tim Andrews
00:09:10
I contacted the bishop and then the Vatican sent me a paper. They were working animals who were put on earth. God put them on the earth to serve us. And if they're service extends life and makes a better life, so be it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:09:30
So will these new kidneys create a better and longer life? You look really good when we come back. This is the future of transplantation, a heart, a liver, a kidney. These are organs that are grown, not in the body, but in the lab.
David Ayeres
00:10:04
They're using a pig organ scaffold and resellularizing that with human cells. Also another group is 3D printing that scaffold, resellicularizing that with human cell, so multiple ways to generate a humanized organ for overcoming the shortage.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:10:22
The potential? Organs on demand. Could you get to the point where you could create a personalized organ for somebody?
David Ayeres
00:10:30
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Mongtomery
00:10:31
I think that's gonna be the future.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:10:34
So an organ that would be designed for Robert Montgomery.
David Ayeres
00:10:37
Personalized organs where we don't have to use any immunosuppression. Somebody starts to develop kidney disease. We take some of their stem cells from a piece of skin or some blood and we start to grow them up and then seed that scaffolding with that person's stem cells that then grow and mature, and then you have a designer organ for that person when they need it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:11:09
'Now to be clear, what he's describing is still years away, and that is why the focus is for now on these genetically modified pigs. Since the time we started investigating xenotransplantation about two years ago, things have taken off at a lightning pace, from compassionate use to a pilot study and now an FDA-approved clinical trial. Also, expect to see high-tech pig farms like these pop up in other places around the country and the world.
David Ayeres
00:11:43
The next facility will be built, will have an output of about 6,000 organs per year, but that's still less than 10% of the demand for the unlimited supply of organs.
Aaron Ortiz
00:11:55
This is a brand new building built specifically for human clinical trials.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:11:59
'Aaron Ortiz is in charge of scaling up United Therapeutics pig production. These are the highly specialized, designated pathogen-free buildings, DPF. They're built using FDA guidelines. It's what they call a bio-secure and pathogen free environment. This is not typical pig farm.
Aaron Ortiz
00:12:18
Yeah, it looks like a biotech facility, to be honest, and the mechanics behind it. The pigs are drinking cleaner water than the employees that are working here, and they're breathing cleaner air here as well.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:12:29
And within this farm, there are also multiple sterile operating rooms. That's where transplant teams from around the country will come starting this summer to procure or harvest the organs.
Aaron Ortiz
00:12:41
The reason we do the procurements here is to mitigate any variabilities that could occur during transport of the animal to the actual hospital site.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:12:49
So the concern was if you're actually moving the pig, that's a source of potential contamination.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:12:59
This is ultimately the biggest concern we heard from so many people that we interviewed for this documentary. They all ask, can the spread of disease from these pigs to humans really be controlled? And that is crucial, after all, to protect the population at large. Do you feel like at this point that is an achievable goal?
Aaron Ortiz
00:13:24
We test them at day 30, we test them day 60, we test them a day 90, we tested quarterly. When they put into quarantine, if they're going for transplant, we will test them when they're in quarantine. And then we'll test the animal again, as we do the procurement of the organ. Make sure it's all straight.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:13:38
That's the sort of testing that was done on the pig kidney transplanted into Tijuana. And also on Raphael, Tim's kidney donor.
Tim Andrews
00:13:48
That'll get everybody moving.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:13:51
A transplant that Tim is thankful for every day.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:13:56
Every Wednesday, he signs into this Zoom meeting from his kitchen table in New Hampshire.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:14:04
Hundreds of people from all over the country want to talk to him about his transplant.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:14:09
And that strikes me that you've done all this, but then you also take the time to do these calls.
Tim Andrews
00:14:14
That was my promise. Give me this and I will spend the remainder of my life helping people get hope.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:14:26
It is the unspoken promise of pioneers. Pay it forward.
Towana Looney
00:14:31
I want you to look at me. If I can do it, the next person can do it.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:14:41
Towana was the star at a recent medical conference, the Lake Nona Impact Forum.
David Ayeres
00:14:46
The system will never be able to deliver enough organs. This is the promise for the future. And thank you for making that future happen.
Towana Looney
00:14:58
You're welcome, thank you.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:15:00
'Mm-hmm. I was there and I can tell you the audience loved her. You look really good. You feel as good as you look?
Towana Looney
00:15:10
Yeah, I do.
Denyce Graves
00:15:11
My husband said, how do you feel about all this attention? She said, I love it.
Towana Looney
00:15:17
I want the word to get out.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:15:21
But the thing about firsts, about pioneers, is that at any moment, their lives can be suddenly thrown into jeopardy.
Tim Andrews
00:15:30
I woke up one morning and I was hurting so bad I couldn't walk or anything. And sure enough I had an infection. You can see the remains of it there.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:15:44
Tim was hospitalized for three weeks to treat the infection and prevent his kidney from being rejected.
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:15:50
It was a quite hard few days for him and for us as well, but fortunately we were able to overcome and we're in a better spot now. We hope this kidney continues for a long time.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:16:03
Turns out as Tim won his fight to keep his kidney, Towana lost hers. Like Tim, Tawanna got an infection, but she also started to reject her pig kidney. So in April, doctors had to remove it. Towona is back on dialysis. It had been 130 days. At the time, she was the longest survivor with a xenotransplant in history. But now soon, that distinction could belong to Tim.
Tim Andrews
00:16:35
I don't want people to look at that and say, well, that's it, it didn't work. It worked. It just wasn't perfected yet. We're gonna have to get there
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:16:49
Science is like life. There are successes and there are failures, but you learn from both of them.
Dr. Robert Mongtomery
00:16:57
We stand on the shoulders of giants for sure. It's extraordinary when you think about it. It took a lot of people doing their part to make this happen.
Dr. Leonardo Riella
00:17:09
I think patients like Tim will be remembered as heroes.
Tim Andrews
00:17:15
What this pig kidney has given me is freedom from this. And what I hope it gives you is hope. Don't give up. I see way too many people give up. Don't give up.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:17:34
Tim's future looks bright, and so does the future of this area of medicine. When do you think this might be available to the average persom?
Dr. Robert Mongtomery
00:17:45
I think less than five years.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:17:51
Do you imagine the future now?
Tim Andrews
00:17:53
Yeah, I do.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:17:55
Visiting grandkids.
Tim Andrews
00:17:56
Visiting grandkids is going to be so much fun, you know, because they saw me at the lowest and now they'll be able to see me alive and laughing and carrying on like Grandpa does.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:18:11
That's great.
Tim Andrews
00:18:12
It's gonna be awesome.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:18:16
On June 5, Tim Andrews became the longest living human with a pig kidney transplant. It's even given him the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream.
Tim Andrews
00:18:26
Well, I knew it was about that ball was going to go. Ha ha ha ha!
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:18:30
Which was throwing out the first pitch for his favorite team, the Boston Red Sox. And more importantly, finally getting to see his grandkids again. Tim Andrews, we all wish you well. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports Animal Farm is now available to stream on HBO Max. We'll be back next week with a new episode of Chasing Life. Thanks for listening.