RONI CARYN RABIN2026年9月4日蒂姆·安德鲁斯体内移植了一颗转基因猪的肾脏，并依靠它生活了九个月。这颗猪肾使他暂时免于接受透析治疗。 Cheryle St. Onge for The New York TimesTwo years ago, Tim Andrews was so worn out that all he wanted to do was sleep. Diabetes and high blood pressure had destroyed his kidneys, and the frequent dialysis treatments that kept him alive by filtering his blood were grueling. Though only 66, he had no energy or appetite, was too weak to walk and had experienced two heart attacks.两年前，蒂姆·安德鲁斯疲惫不堪，唯一想做的就是睡觉。糖尿病和高血压毁掉了他的肾脏，而通过过滤血液维持他生命的频繁透析治疗令人精疲力竭。尽管只有66岁，他却毫无精力与食欲，虚弱得无法行走，还曾两次心脏病发作。“I was dying,” Mr. Andrews said. A kidney transplant could have saved his life, but the organs are in short supply. Roughly 90,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, and on average, 11 people die every day while waiting for one, according to United Network for Organ Sharing. And his rare blood type meant that Mr. Andrews’ odds of getting a matching human kidney were especially slim.“我当时快死了，”安德鲁斯说。肾移植本可以救他的命，但器官供应短缺。根据美国器官共享联合网络的数据，约有9万人在等待肾移植，平均每天有11人在等待中去世。而且，由于安德鲁斯的血型较为罕见，他获得匹配的人类肾脏的几率尤其渺茫。So when he heard that doctors at Mass General Brigham were transplanting patients with kidneys from genetically modified pigs, he reached out.因此，当他听说麻省总医院布里格姆的医生正在为患者移植转基因猪的肾脏时，他主动联系了他们。“I figured, if I’m going to die, I might as well do something for humanity and be part of this experiment,” he said.“我想，如果我要死了，不如为人类做点事，参与这个实验，”他说。Mr. Andrews received a genetically modified pig kidney on Jan. 25, 2025, and lived with it for nine months. This year, he became the first known patient to receive a human donor kidney after a pig kidney transplant, a milestone described in a paper published Thursday in The Lancet.2025年1月25日，安德鲁斯接受了转基因猪肾的移植，带着它生活了九个月。今年，他成为已知首例在猪肾移植后接受人类供体肾脏的患者，周四发表于《柳叶刀》的一篇论文中描述了这一里程碑式的成就。His case provides early proof of an intriguing concept in transplant medicine: that pig kidneys, while not yet a permanent solution, could offer “bridges” to transplants with human organs. The kidneys come from pigs that have undergone numerous genetic edits, including some designed to prevent a severe organ rejection response and others to inactivate viruses in the pig genome.他的病例为移植医学中一个引人关注的概念提供了初步证据：猪肾虽尚非永久性解决方案，但可以作为通往人类器官移植的“桥梁”。这些猪肾来自经过大量基因编辑的猪，其中一些编辑旨在防止严重的器官排斥反应，还有一些用于灭活猪基因组中的病毒。By using the pig kidneys as a stopgap, doctors hope to keep patients alive while they make their way up the waiting list for a human kidney, and to provide a respite from dialysis, which can be debilitating.医生们希望患者在等待人类肾脏移植期间将猪肾作为过渡性方案维持生命，并让患者免受可能使人衰弱的透析的折磨。“Dialysis causes so much wear and tear on our patients that they become too sick to get a transplant, or die while waiting,” said Dr. Leonardo V. Riella, the paper’s lead author and associate director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance at Mass General Brigham.“透析对我们的患者造成极大损耗，以至于他们病重到无法接受移植，或在等待中死亡，”论文第一作者、麻省总医院布里格姆莱戈雷塔临床移植耐受中心副主任莱昂纳多·列拉博士说。The idea that pig kidneys could be used this way wasn’t a given. When researchers first considered the idea, there was a concern that patients who had received a pig kidney might become more prone to rejecting a human kidney later.猪肾可以这样使用的想法并非理所当然。当研究人员最初考虑这一想法时，有人担心，接受过猪肾的患者日后可能更容易排斥人类肾脏。But Mr. Andrews’s experience, along with that of one other patient, suggests that “it doesn’t seem to change how you react to human tissue at all,” said Mike Curtis, president and chief executive at eGenesis, the biotechnology company that produces the genetically modified pigs used at Mass General Brigham and helped fund the study.但安德鲁斯先生以及另一位患者的经历表明，“它似乎根本不会改变你对人体组织的反应，”eGenesis总裁兼首席执行官迈克·柯蒂斯说。eGenesis是一家生物技术公司，生产麻省总医院布里格姆所使用的转基因猪，并为该研究提供了部分资助。“Right now, we don’t think there’s any downside of having a pig kidney followed by a human kidney, but when we started this, we had no idea that that would be true,” Dr. Curtis said.“目前，我们不认为先移植猪肾再移植人肾有任何弊端，但在我们开始这项工作时，我们并不知道这一点会成立，”柯蒂斯说。Altogether, five patients at Mass General Brigham have received pig kidneys produced by eGenesis under a Food and Drug Administration program allowing expanded access for patients who have no other treatment options. Three, including Mr. Andrews, lived with the organs for more than eight months, the company said Thursday. (One patient died of an unexpected cardiac event shortly after transplantation, and one patient was transplanted only in June.)在麻省总医院布里格姆，共有五名患者根据美国食品药品监督管理局一项允许无其他治疗选择患者扩大使用的计划，接受了eGenesis生产的猪肾。该公司周四表示，包括安德鲁斯在内的三名患者带着这些器官存活了八个多月。（一名患者在移植后不久因意外心脏事件死亡，另一名患者6月才接受移植。）安德鲁斯在依靠猪肾生活了271天后成功接受了人类捐赠的肾脏，如今他已重拾游泳、钓鱼和划独木舟的爱好。The nine months Mr. Andrews spent with the animal organ were critical to getting his health back on track, his doctors said. The pig’s kidney made urine and cleared waste from his body 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing what dialysis does by machine only every other day, during hourslong sessions. His diet improved, and he regained muscle mass.安德鲁斯的医生们说，带着动物器官度过的九个月对于他的健康重回正轨至关重要。这颗猪肾每天24小时、每周七天不间断地生成尿液并清除体内废物，而透析只能通过机器，每隔一天进行数小时的治疗。他的饮食改善了，肌肉量也恢复了。“It gave me life,” Mr. Andrews said.“它给了我生命，”安德鲁斯说。Doctors who specialize in kidney disease are often struck by how miserable patients say they are on dialysis. “The message from patients — and it was very shocking for us — is that life on dialysis is no life,” Dr. Riella said. “So they’re all looking for that alternative, which is why so many patients have volunteered and stepped forward, even with all the unknowns of research.”专门研究肾脏疾病的医生常常对患者口中透析生活的痛苦感到震惊。“患者传递的信息对我们来说非常令人震惊，他们说透析生活根本算不上生活，”列拉说。“所以他们都在寻找替代方案，正因如此这么多患者自愿站出来参与，即使研究充满未知。”The new research is the latest advance in the field of cross-species transplantation, or xenotransplantation, which has progressed at a remarkable pace in recent years, with advances in genetic engineering and cloning and the development of new anti-rejection drugs. The F.D.A. has allowed the experimental procedures under strict oversight.这项新研究是跨物种移植（即异种移植）领域的最新进展。近年来，随着基因工程和克隆技术的进步，以及新型抗排斥药物的开发，该领域以惊人的速度发展。美国食品药品监督管理局已允许在严格监管下开展这些实验性手术。Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, a professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a pioneer in xenotransplantation, said even he was impressed by the speed of development and the support among patients and the public generally.马里兰大学医学院外科学教授、异种移植先驱穆罕默德·莫希乌丁博士说，就连他本人也对这一领域的发展速度以及患者和公众的广泛支持印象深刻。Dr. Mohiuddin spent decades putting pig hearts into baboons before being involved in the first transplant of a genetically modified pig’s heart into a human patient in 2022. “I never imagined in my lifetime that I would see the human translation of this,” he said, adding, “The initial progress with nonhuman primates in the lab was slow.”莫希乌丁花了数十年时间，将猪心移植到狒狒体内，之后于2022年参与了首例将转基因猪心移植到人类患者体内的手术。“我从未想过，有生之年能看到这项技术应用于人类，”他说，他还说，“最初在实验室中对非人灵长类动物的研究进展很慢。”The first heart recipients had very advanced disease and died shortly after receiving the pig hearts. But just a few years later, in March 2024, surgeons at Mass General in Boston transplanted the first kidney from a gene-edited pig into a human patient, Rick Slayman. Mr. Slayman, 62, was discharged from the hospital two weeks later, but he had a chronic heart condition and died within two months of an apparently unrelated cardiac event.第一批心脏接受者病情已非常晚期，在接受猪心后不久便去世了。但仅仅几年后，2024年3月，波士顿麻省总医院的外科医生将首颗基因编辑猪的肾脏移植到了人类患者里克·斯莱曼体内。62岁的斯莱曼两周后出院，但他患有慢性心脏病，在两个月内死于一次显然无关的心脏事件。More work is ongoing. EGenesis is starting a formal clinical trial next year with 33 patients. Another biotechnology company that produces genetically modified pigs, United Therapeutics Corporation, began a clinical trial of its kidneys in November 2025 and will soon start a second trial, it said in a statement this week. It is also starting a very small clinical trial of pig heart transplants to humans, the statement said.更多工作正在推进中。eGenesis明年将启动一项有33名患者参与的正式临床试验。另一家生产转基因猪的生物技术公司联合治疗公司本周在声明中表示，该公司已于2025年11月启动猪肾脏的临床试验，并将很快启动第二项试验。声明还称，该公司正在启动一项规模很小的猪心移植到人体的临床试验。Dr. Curtis, the eGenesis executive, said that while “bridge” kidneys would prove valuable, the ultimate goal was to develop pig kidneys that could last as long as human transplants.eGenesis高管柯蒂斯表示，虽然“过渡性”肾脏将被证明很有价值，但最终目标是开发出能够像人类移植肾一样持久的猪肾。“Maybe the first more reachable goal is for this treatment to be a bridge, and maybe 10 or 15 years from now, we may be talking about an alternative as good as human kidneys,” Dr. Riella said. “We’re at the beginning of the journey.”“也许第一个更可实现的目标是让这种治疗成为一种过渡，或许10年或15年后，我们可能会讨论一种与人类肾脏一样好的替代方案，”列拉说。“我们正处于这段旅程的起点。”Mr. Andrews had to be hospitalized several times while he had the pig kidney, and ultimately it had to be removed after blood clots formed in the organ’s vessels and damaged it. He resumed dialysis briefly, and in January he received a human kidney from a matching donor.安德鲁斯在带着猪肾期间曾多次住院，最终因器官血管中形成血栓并造成损伤而不得不将其摘除。他短暂恢复了透析，并于1月从一位匹配的供体那里接受了人类肾脏。Although he has had some health problems since, he said he was fitter than he had been in years and was back to living much of the year in a cabin by a pond. He swims and kayaks in the pond and takes short bike rides, and his appetite — dampened during dialysis — is back.尽管此后他仍有一些健康问题，但他说自己比多年来都要健康，并已恢复到一年中大部分时间住在池塘边小屋的生活。他在池塘里游泳、划皮划艇，还会骑自行车短途兜风，在透析期间减退的食欲也恢复了。“I went from thinking I had months, maybe a year, because I just felt so bad,” he said of his time on dialysis. But his transplants have changed the way he looks at life, he said. “When you say ‘stop and smell the roses,’ that’s my life now. I look at everything and go ‘wow.’”“当时我感觉非常糟糕，以为自己只剩几个月，或者一年时间，”他在谈到透析时期时说。但他说，移植手术改变了他看待生活的方式。“当你说‘停下脚步，闻闻玫瑰花香’，那就是我现在的生活。我看着周围的一切，都会感叹‘哇’。”Roni Caryn Rabin是《纽约时报》健康记者，主要关注妇幼健康、医疗保健中的种族和经济差异以及金钱对医疗的影响。翻译：晋其角点击查看本文英文版。