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Molecular Characterization And Inhibition Of Antibodies Elicited Against Galactosyltransferase Knockout Pig Xenografts, John M. Stewart

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

On average, 21 people in the United States die every day while waiting for a transplantable organ. Moreover, at the end of 2014, nearly 130,000 additional individuals were still on the transplant waiting list. Xenotransplantation, the transplantation of cells and/or organs from a member of another species, is both a viable supplement for, and bridge to, allotransplantation. Pigs are the favored organ donor because they: 1) breed and grow rapidly, 2) can be genetically modified, and 3) present few ethical concerns. However, due in part to their phylogenetic distance, several barriers must be successfully overcome before clinical xenotransplantation can be …