NEW YORK CITY ‒ Towana Looney is thrilled to be in the spotlight as a record-breaker when it comes to transplant success.

Looney has thrived for 10 weeks now with a pig kidney, surpassing the previous record of 60 days for someone living with an organ from another species.

The resident of Gadsden, Alabama, has been staying in a rented apartment in Manhattan, just a few miles from NYU Langone Hospital, where the pig kidney was transplanted on November 25. While it’s her debut visit to New York City, she has mainly focused on her daily hospital appointments for blood tests and check-ups rather than exploring the city.

Despite the chilly weather and high costs, Looney, who is taking a break from her job at Dollar General in Gadsden, has little to complain about.

She expresses great satisfaction with her medical treatment, especially praising her favorite nurses, Taylor and Jackie. The hospital has covered all expenses related to the experimental procedure, accommodation, and her living costs, as it is one of the few facilities in the nation addressing the shortage of human organs by utilizing pig organs.

In Looney’s view, her pig kidney is functioning wonderfully.

“Still going strong and feeling great,” she texted on Monday. “I can’t wait to return to Alabama.”

Looney has regained her appetite and even managed to walk 10 blocks in New York City on a warmer day—something she couldn’t have imagined doing during her seven years on dialysis.

The idea of using animal organs as alternatives for human ones has been researched for many years. Looney is the fifth individual to receive a pig organ through what the Food and Drug Administration refers to as “compassionate use” for patients with limited options.

Previously, two other patients who received pig kidneys—one at NYU Langone and another at Massachusetts General Hospital—passed away or had their transplants removed within eight weeks. Likewise, two recipients of pig hearts at the University of Maryland had similar outcomes.

On Monday, the FDA greenlit the first clinical trial for what is known as xenotransplantation by United Therapeutics, the company that raised most of the pigs used in prior transplants.

United Therapeutics, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, plans to conduct trials with its pig kidneys, starting with six patients suffering from end-stage kidney disease and eventually expanding to as many as 50.

Candidates for this trial, launching later this year, will be those who cannot receive human transplants for medical reasons or who are on the waiting list but face a higher risk of not receiving one within five years.

Not Waiting to Die

Due to her kidney donation to her mother in 1999, Looney was prioritized on the transplant list when she needed a kidney about eight years ago.

She held onto hope for a compatible human donor kidney. However, due to past blood transfusions and natural antibodies, her immune system would likely reject most human donors.

Despite extensive searching through thousands of potential matches, the ideal donor never materialized.

Looney could have continued waiting, but her doctors advised that the chances of finding a human match were almost nonexistent.

Determined to avoid merely waiting for her condition to worsen, she chose to participate in the transplant trials—fully aware of the previous four patients’ unfortunate outcomes.

Now, she is enjoying life to the fullest, as her daughter, Tytiana Looney, often says.

In addition to near-daily hospital visits, Looney enjoys spending time with her daughter Tytiana, who is a lab technician and has been with her since Christmas, and connecting with her other daughter and two young grandchildren through FaceTime. The 10-year-old grandchild visited during the holidays and “didn’t want to leave.”

During a recent Sunday brunch in Manhattan, Looney shared that she understands why the earlier kidney and heart transplant patients did not survive.

She believes her pig organ’s health is exceptional and that if she had waited until she was in worse condition, she may not have made it either.

Receiving such a robust organ is “like putting high octane gas in a ’67 Chevy,” she remarked.

Being Cautious

Although doctors are optimistic about Looney’s progress, they remain vigilant.

If any issues arise, they want to detect them immediately to address small problems before they escalate.

Thus, since her surgery on November 25, Looney has been visiting NYU Langone Hospital almost daily for blood tests and check-ups. She wears a ring and a watch that track her heart rate, blood pressure, and other health indicators.

Previously, she also wore a monitoring necklace, which she returned because it was overly sensitive; at one point, she accidentally bumped it, causing the hospital to contact her urgently to check on her condition.

About three weeks post-transplant, it seemed Looney’s body began rejecting the new kidney. Fortunately, the medical team detected the issue promptly and treated her as if she were experiencing rejection with a human organ, allowing her to stabilize, as stated by Dr. Robert Montgomery, who leads her care at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute.

Montgomery explained he will perform another biopsy on Looney’s kidney at the end of the month to ensure it remains healthy before sending her back to Alabama. She will check in with local doctors weekly and travel back to New York roughly once a month. Patients in the United Therapeutics trial will also receive lifelong follow-up care.

Ethics Surrounding Animal-to-Human Transplants

Some individuals raise ethical concerns about sacrificing pigs for human organ transplants.

“The kidney she received came at the cost of another’s life,” stated Alka Chandna, vice president of laboratory investigations at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an advocacy organization.

“Using animals as mere spare parts is both unethical and perilous,” she added in an email to YSL News.

One of the transplant patients in Maryland exhibited signs of a pig virus in their transplanted heart, raising alarms about the potential transfer of zoonotic viruses through transplants.

“Rather than resorting to killing animals and risking zoonotic pathogens, efforts should focus on enhancing the human organ procurement system, which discards thousands of viable organs yearly, alongside preventive healthcare to decrease the need for transplants,” Chandna asserted.

The pig used for Looney’s transplant was bred to be free from known viruses and underwent thorough checks before transplantation, according to NYU officials.

Ethicists have suggested that acquiring organs from animals for transplantation poses no greater moral issue than using them for food.

Looney shares this perspective.

“You eat bacon,” she remarked.