“This is the first time we’ve seen this play out in a human model,” said Dr Stephen Withers, UBC Professor Emeritus of chemistry who co-led the enzyme development. “It gives us invaluable insight into how to improve long-term outcomes.”
A human kidney that was converted from blood type A to the universal O blood type with the special enzymes. It is successfully transplanted in a human recipient and is the first of its kind. These special enzymes were developed at the University of British Columbia. It is published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, the achievement marks a major step toward helping thousands of patients get kidney transplants sooner. It is a life’s decade of work. In the early 2010s, Dr Withers and colleague Dr. Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu, a UBC professor in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine and the Center for Blood Research, were focused on making universal donor blood by stripping away the sugars that define blood types.
Those same sugars, or antigens, coat organ blood vessels. If a recipient’s immune system detects the wrong antigen, it attacks. Type-O patients—more than half of kidney waitlists—can only receive type-O organs, yet type-O kidneys are often given to others because they’re universally compatible. As a result, type-O patients typically wait two to four years longer, and many die waiting.
In a first-in-human experiment, the enzyme-converted kidney was transplanted into a brain-dead recipient with consent from the family, allowing researchers to observe the immune response without risking a life. For two days, the kidney functioned without signs of hyperacute rejection, the rapid immune reaction that can destroy an incompatible organ within minutes. By the third day, some blood-type markers reappeared, triggering a mild reaction, but the damage was far less severe than in a typical mismatch, and researchers saw signs that the body was beginning to tolerate the organ.
Its Potential at Play
This new approach changes the organ rather than the patient, meaning transplants could be performed faster, with fewer complications, and for the first time could unlock the use of blood-type mismatched organs from deceased donors—when every hour can determine whether a patient lives or dies.
Sources: Medical Xpress, University of British Columbia
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-enzyme-technology-human-universal-donor.html
Image Credit: Unsplash
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