Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I and today I
Speaker 1: will be reading National Geographic magazine dated May twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. Radio
Speaker 1: Eye is a reading service intended for people who are
Speaker 1: blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
Speaker 1: read printed material. Please join me now for the first
Speaker 1: article entitled How Penguins Learned to Live on the Edge
Speaker 1: by Renee Ebersol. Roughly six hundred miles off the coast
Speaker 1: of mainland Ecuador, conservation biologist d Bourzma cruised in an
Speaker 1: inflatable zodiac through the blue waters surrounding Bartolomy Island, a
Speaker 1: small part of the Pacific Ocean archipelago known as the
Speaker 1: Galopicus Islands. She was joined by several other scientists, all
Speaker 1: of whom scanned the shoreline for an elusive black and
Speaker 1: white seabird standing about a foot and half tall. Galopicus
Speaker 1: penguins are the rarest and among the smallest penguins in
Speaker 1: the world, but most notably, they are the only ones
Speaker 1: living at the equator, existing on these volcanic islands in
Speaker 1: the blazing hot sun. How could you not fall in
Speaker 1: love with these birds? Asked the seventy eight year old
Speaker 1: director of the University of Washington's Center for ecosystem Sentinels
Speaker 1: and a national geographic explorer. They're comical, they're curious, their enduring, endearing.
Speaker 1: Borizma suddenly pointed to five penguins near a cave, then another,
Speaker 1: and another seven in total once the goat got close
Speaker 1: enough to shore. Once the boat got close enough to shore,
Speaker 1: two Ecuadorians veterinarian m Gavidens Escobar and park guard Marlon Ramone,
Speaker 1: leaped out, easily scaling the sharp and slippery rocks. In
Speaker 1: less than five minutes, Escobar was back lightly gripping a
Speaker 1: penguin under its chin with one hand and propping its
Speaker 1: feet in his other. He passed it to Boorzma, who
Speaker 1: was ready with her calipers to ascertain the size of
Speaker 1: the bird's bill and feet. Then she pulled out her
Speaker 1: yellow tape measure to discern the length of the bird's wingspan.
Speaker 1: We're measuring him for a suit, she joked. These were
Speaker 1: the first steps in the process of recording information that
Speaker 1: allows researchers to monitor the health of the colony in
Speaker 1: the area. Next, Boorzma cinched a red cord around the
Speaker 1: penguin's chest and attached it to a scale. Now the
Speaker 1: flightless bird was dangling in mid air, flippers whirling. That's
Speaker 1: a big one, she told her colleague Caroline Capello, a
Speaker 1: wildlife ecologist who has studied penguins in the galopagus alongside
Speaker 1: Borizma for more than a decade. Capello recorded the data.
Speaker 1: A little more than five pounds and likely a male.
Speaker 1: Freeing the feisty bird from the cord, Boorizma then secured
Speaker 1: its head between her left fore arm and knee in
Speaker 1: a well practiced maneuver to protect her legs from painful bites.
Speaker 1: You're all right, You're all right, she told the squirming penguin.
Speaker 1: You're so soft, Yes, you are. Calm down. We're going
Speaker 1: to let you go in just a minute. The penguin's
Speaker 1: flippers thick at the top and tapered to a thin
Speaker 1: trailing edge, ideally shaped for soaring through water or in
Speaker 1: great condition, she noted, smoothing them with her hands protected
Speaker 1: by beige wool fingerless gloves, she affixed a tiny metal
Speaker 1: tag into the webbing of its left foot and gently
Speaker 1: set it down on the edge of the zodiac, seemingly
Speaker 1: unfazed by the ordeal, the penguin surveyed the water, then
Speaker 1: leaned forward and quietly plopped into the Pacific to again
Speaker 1: swim among green sea turtles and marine iguanas. Touching a
Speaker 1: bird like that is electric brsmas sad as she watched
Speaker 1: it vanish beneath the surface. It is also an increasingly
Speaker 1: rare opportunity for researchers. Today, Galopicus penguins join the more
Speaker 1: than half of all penguin species that are classified as
Speaker 1: endangered or vulnerable, imperiled by such threats as warming temperatures, overfishing,
Speaker 1: habitat destruction, and pollution. Gurzma, who has been called the
Speaker 1: Jane Goodall of penguins, consider these birds to be marine
Speaker 1: sentinels or canaries in a coal mine, describing how one
Speaker 1: species rapid decline signals a significant natural or human made
Speaker 1: change happening within its environment. Still, she believes that the
Speaker 1: species has the capacitated to hang on, in part because
Speaker 1: researchers continue to gain a better understanding of how these
Speaker 1: creatures leverage centuries of adaptations to be resilient in the
Speaker 1: increasingly unpredicable world around them. Fifty four years ago, when
Speaker 1: I started this. I thought Galopicus penguins would be gone
Speaker 1: by now, she said, But they're still here. The Galopicus
Speaker 1: penguins evolutionary journey illustrates how environmental pressures shape species over
Speaker 1: millions of years. Genetic studies suggest they descended from Humboldt
Speaker 1: penguins roughly two million years ago the Pleistocene epoch, a
Speaker 1: period marked by well wide ranging climatic changes. The earliest
Speaker 1: Galopitus penguin ancestors probably came to the islands by surfing
Speaker 1: the northbound Humboldt Current that brings cold, nutrient rich water
Speaker 1: along the coast of South America, likely settling on the
Speaker 1: western part of the archipelago on Isabella and Ferdnana Islands,
Speaker 1: the penguins found plentiful food and shelter. While the Humboldt
Speaker 1: and another current, the Cromwells, still flow here, they now
Speaker 1: bring nutrients and food intermittently in duration and intensity. One
Speaker 1: of the significant factors to how Galopicus penguins adapted to
Speaker 1: living in this warm climate is that they nest in cool,
Speaker 1: shady crevices on the islands. The coastlines are sculpted by
Speaker 1: explosive volcanic eruptions, and erosion, providing cracks and lava tunnels
Speaker 1: where punguins can avoid overheating. Their small dature allows them
Speaker 1: to squeeze into these dark spaces where they and their
Speaker 1: chicks hide from predators such as Galopicus snakes and sally
Speaker 1: light foot crabs. With a thinner layer of fat and
Speaker 1: fewer feathers than most other penguins, these birds evolved for
Speaker 1: life in the subtropics. Galopicus penguins, along with the Humboldt,
Speaker 1: Megellanic and African species, belong to a group known as
Speaker 1: banded penguins for the distinctive black and white patterning around
Speaker 1: their chests and heads. They all live in warmer climates
Speaker 1: and regulate their body temperature by panting similar to a
Speaker 1: dog on a hot day, and they stand with their
Speaker 1: flippers outstretched to release heat. White feathers on Galopicus penguins
Speaker 1: faces and their featherless ankles and feet further help shunt
Speaker 1: warmth from their stout little bodies. The birds can also
Speaker 1: shed feathers around their faces during hot periods. But the
Speaker 1: adaptation that sets Galopicus penguins apart is their flexibility as
Speaker 1: to when they mold replace feathers and breed, rather than
Speaker 1: having one fixed molting and mating season as other penguin
Speaker 1: species do. The timing is based on whether enough nutrients
Speaker 1: are being delivered from cold ocean currents and upwellings to
Speaker 1: give them energy to replace their feathers, which, unlike other
Speaker 1: penguin cycles, occurs before breeding and up to twice a year.
Speaker 1: They can delay molting and mating until food is available
Speaker 1: and there's a better chance of successfully starting a family.
Speaker 1: All this adds up to a boom or bust way
Speaker 1: of life. By tracking and measuring Galopicus penguins weight and
Speaker 1: population numbers over decades, Burizma made the incredible discovery that
Speaker 1: their breeding is tightly in sync with the rhythms of
Speaker 1: al Ninos and La Ninas. The birds thrive during La
Speaker 1: Nina conditions when there are strong currents of cold, nutrient
Speaker 1: rich water flowing north, providing plentiful fish, squid, and crustaceans
Speaker 1: for the penguins. When Al Nino's warm weather in the
Speaker 1: sunde Central and Eastern Pacific displaces the cool currents, it
Speaker 1: drastically reduces upwelling and their food supply. In years when
Speaker 1: provisions are scarce, some penguins starve and breeding comes to
Speaker 1: a standstill, it could take decades for the population to recover.
Speaker 1: During a severe El Nino in the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: the population fell by more than half. Now, as global
Speaker 1: temperatures heat up, el Ninos are becoming more frequent and extreme,
Speaker 1: threatening to further reduce the availability of nutrients, while rising
Speaker 1: sea levels are inundating nesting sites. Still, Borisma has come
Speaker 1: to believe that even with the increasing frequency of El
Speaker 1: nino's and extreme weather events, some Galopogus penguins will persist
Speaker 1: because their ecosystem is also supported by periodic deep water
Speaker 1: upwellings bringing pulses of nutrients to sustain the food chain.
Speaker 1: But if for some reason the currents change and productivity
Speaker 1: goes down, she said, they'll have trouble because there will
Speaker 1: be nowhere left for them to go but Peru or
Speaker 1: Chile and NAT's a long swim. Wursma estimates there are
Speaker 1: maybe two thousand Galopicus penguins left, less than half as
Speaker 1: many as there were fifty years ago when she started
Speaker 1: her trailblazing research. But she believes that a couple of
Speaker 1: crucial actions can protect their future. In order to survive
Speaker 1: and thrive. Gallipicus penguins need humans to help them overcome
Speaker 1: two major threats introduced predators mainly rats and cats, and
Speaker 1: natural nesting areas becoming increasingly inhospitable. Solving the first issue
Speaker 1: is fairly straightforward. Cats and rats arrived in the Galopicus
Speaker 1: nearly two hundred years ago. With sailors and whalers. They
Speaker 1: can easily scale difficult terrain and squeeze into nests of
Speaker 1: penguins and other sea birds, devouring eggs and chicks. Recently,
Speaker 1: the Galopicus National Park Partners partnered with environmental organization Jokotoko
Speaker 1: to undertake an invasive species eradication program on f Floriana
Speaker 1: Island in the southern part of the archipelago. In October
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, park managers began exterminating the rats and
Speaker 1: cats on Floriana, using traps and unmanned ultra light helicopters
Speaker 1: to disperse pellets of rudenticide and tocsin laced sausages across
Speaker 1: the entire island. The program appears to be working. Previously,
Speaker 1: a small number of penguins remained in the area, Borizma said,
Speaker 1: but not easily removing the predators and continuing to monitor
Speaker 1: for their presence will give penguins a fair shot at
Speaker 1: long term survival. To mitigate the second threat, Borisma and
Speaker 1: our colleagues are hoping to obtain funding to build artificial
Speaker 1: nests and help the birds recolonize Floriana. Borizma first began
Speaker 1: thinking about constructing nests some years ago when she was
Speaker 1: puzzled by a penguin pair nesting on top of lava
Speaker 1: along the western edge of the archipelago on Ferdinand Ferdanina
Speaker 1: Island without any shade. The birds took turns sitting on
Speaker 1: the eggs from early evening until morning, but then retreated
Speaker 1: during the heat of the day, leaving the eggs unprotected. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the eggs died. Gorzma realized that there weren't enough shaded
Speaker 1: nest sites to go around, and that might be limiting
Speaker 1: how many baby penguins could join the population each year.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years ago, she began experimenting with artificial nest designs
Speaker 1: that would blend into the environment so they wouldn't mar
Speaker 1: the island's natural beauty. The park didn't want doggy igloos
Speaker 1: or something like that. They like what they use at
Speaker 1: zoos she said when option was an inconspicuous little penguin
Speaker 1: carport made from stacked lava rocks. The other, the one
Speaker 1: the penguins wound up preferring, was created by digging cavernous
Speaker 1: holes directly into the hard lava substrate. As in all
Speaker 1: real estate, location was key. The nests needed to be
Speaker 1: close to the water, but not so close that they'd
Speaker 1: fled within the penguins three months period. The idea of
Speaker 1: building nests, Borzma said, is that if conditions are good,
Speaker 1: you want everybody that wants to breed to be able
Speaker 1: to breed. On the third day of the expedition, Burizma
Speaker 1: and her team arrived at Punta Espinoza on Ferdini Ferdinina Island,
Speaker 1: the first place Burzma had ever tried to build the
Speaker 1: artificial nests. They disembarked from the zodiac and walked carefully
Speaker 1: across the sharp lava slathered with iguana poop. Two members
Speaker 1: located and checked the nest sites. Capello thirty five, who
Speaker 1: is currently doing postdoctoral research at Cornell University, and Aura
Speaker 1: Banda Cruz forty two, a third generation resident of the
Speaker 1: Galopicus and a naturalist working aboard the Silver Sea cruise
Speaker 1: ship that hosted Gourzma's survey. While ferrying tourists around the glopitus,
Speaker 1: peering into a small space between a pile of rocks,
Speaker 1: Capello shouted that she found an artificial nest that appeared
Speaker 1: to have been used recently. There were shards of broken
Speaker 1: eggshells and downy feathers scattered around the area. Maybe it hatched,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was predated, Capello said, as she slipped
Speaker 1: the eggshells into a coin envelope for closer inspection later. Regardless,
Speaker 1: any sign of nessing activity was good news. In her
Speaker 1: work as a cruise ship naturalist, Bonda Cruz has spent
Speaker 1: nearly a decade photographing Galobicus penguins. This has led her
Speaker 1: to develop a non invasive method to identify individuals using
Speaker 1: the distinctive patterns of spots on their chests. I realized
Speaker 1: that the spots were different on each one of them,
Speaker 1: she said, Each one is unique like a fingerprint. Similarly,
Speaker 1: researchers have learned to identify jaguars, zebras, dolphins, and even
Speaker 1: koalas by their distinguishing patterns. Bonda Cruz is hopeful that
Speaker 1: going forward in the periods between annual surveys like this one,
Speaker 1: she could partner with other expedition naturalists who will send
Speaker 1: more photographs, helping create a visual archive that can be
Speaker 1: used to discern penguins when they're sighted. The images can
Speaker 1: also provide records of the birds overall health and the
Speaker 1: ratio of adults to juveniles. You can tell the adults
Speaker 1: because they have a white line around their cheek and
Speaker 1: their feet are black, bond Acruz said. Juveniles have paler
Speaker 1: feet and white cheeks. What's more, the photos help document
Speaker 1: periods in which the penguins are working harder for their food,
Speaker 1: often correlating with an El Nino. They start spending more
Speaker 1: time in the water, bond Acruz said, they don't have
Speaker 1: time to dry completely and they start growing algae. So
Speaker 1: when you see a green penguin, it's a symbol that
Speaker 1: things are not going well for them. For her part,
Speaker 1: Gorzma is thrilled to still be learning new things about
Speaker 1: the lives of Galopicus penguins, especially from this next generation
Speaker 1: of scientists. For a long time, she worried that she
Speaker 1: wouldn't have anyone to take over her Galopicus research when
Speaker 1: she retired. You realize when you're jumping and crawling around
Speaker 1: on the lava that your days are numbered. You can't
Speaker 1: do this forever, she said, sitting on the edge of
Speaker 1: the zodiac while her colleagues check another area for penguins
Speaker 1: and signs of nesting. That's why I was so happy
Speaker 1: to find first Caroline and now Aura. I think they
Speaker 1: can make a dynamic pear and carry it on for
Speaker 1: another ten twenty thirty years if they want. She went quiet,
Speaker 1: watching a male penguin standing alone along the shore, basking
Speaker 1: in the late afternoon's golden light. Ah. The penguin braid,
Speaker 1: trying to attract a male a mate. Ah Ah, Boorsmois
Speaker 1: called back. He's saying, come see my etchings. I've got
Speaker 1: a good nest. Come take a look, she said, grinning.
Speaker 1: If the conditions stayed as favorable as they've been in
Speaker 1: recent weeks, cold water and lots of fish, she felt
Speaker 1: confident he'll be breeding soon. The next article is from
Speaker 1: the June twenty twenty five National Geographic. This pig could
Speaker 1: Save Your life by Matthew Cher. For decades, scientists and
Speaker 1: surgeons around the world have been trying to solve the
Speaker 1: organ donor crisis. Could the answer be rolling in the mud.
Speaker 1: The entry require fires should have come with an instruction booklet,
Speaker 1: sign in at the security hut, choose off at the door,
Speaker 1: over to the locker room for a hot shower, into
Speaker 1: a long protective surgical smock and knee high rubber waiters,
Speaker 1: and finally a pair of safety goggles, which, in the
Speaker 1: clammy heat of the laboratory complex, quickly began to fog.
Speaker 1: Sorry for the trouble, smiled my tour guide, Bjorn Petersen,
Speaker 1: waving me forward. We just have to be exceptionally careful
Speaker 1: about pathogen's You'll get used to it, I promise. A
Speaker 1: couple of hours earlier, i'd woken in a hotel in
Speaker 1: a Midwestern city I've been asked not to name. Now,
Speaker 1: with the sun curdling above the surrounding pasture and a
Speaker 1: gauze of mist in the air, I found myself following Peterson,
Speaker 1: a German born scientist, through the corridors of a highly
Speaker 1: secret research facility and across a muddy courtyard cross hatched
Speaker 1: with boot prints. When we bought the place, he said
Speaker 1: the owners were using it as a livestock research facility.
Speaker 1: Indicated an adjacent barn. The cattle were here and the
Speaker 1: horses in the field up there. We've kept the same
Speaker 1: basic layout, though obviously our purpose is very different. He
Speaker 1: said something else as we entered the barn, but I
Speaker 1: didn't catch it. His voice had been drowned out by
Speaker 1: racus chorus of expectant grunts and the clatter of trotter's
Speaker 1: on cement. A dozen odd pigs surged forward to the
Speaker 1: edges of the individual enclosures, clanging their snouts against the
Speaker 1: metal gates. I want you to meet someone, Peterson said,
Speaker 1: blinking into the harsh overhead light. He stopped near the
Speaker 1: pen of an animal whose name card identified her as Margherita.
Speaker 1: She curled her body against Peterson's hand in the manner
Speaker 1: of an oversize housecat. Margherita was one of our first,
Speaker 1: Peterson said, proudly, leaning down to stroke the protuberant black
Speaker 1: hairs between the pig's ears. Most of these animals you're
Speaker 1: looking at were created from the same cells, but there's
Speaker 1: something special about the first, don't you think. Peterson, who
Speaker 1: serves as the Sight, had at the farm as a
Speaker 1: specialist in livestock cloning and zeno transplantation, and exceedingly advanced
Speaker 1: to scientific technique in which animal matter is transferred into
Speaker 1: human patients. The name derives from a Greek for strange
Speaker 1: or foreign. In twenty twenty three, after nearly a quarter
Speaker 1: century working at government research institutions in Europe, Peterson uprooted
Speaker 1: his family and moved to the Midwest to take a
Speaker 1: job with e Genesis, a biotech firm backed by a
Speaker 1: group of venture capital firm investors. Then in the early
Speaker 1: phases of a remarkable plan to develop genetically modified pig
Speaker 1: kidneys for transplantation into humans. Powered by advances in gene
Speaker 1: editing and immunosuppressive medicine, e Genesis had quickly demonstrated that
Speaker 1: its organs could survive for long periods in the bodies
Speaker 1: of primate test subjects, filtering blood and producing urine as
Speaker 1: ably as an alo transplanted or same species kidney. Now
Speaker 1: two years later, Peterson and e Genesis stand at the
Speaker 1: four front of a major revolution in the science of
Speaker 1: organ transplantation, a revolution that will have implications for the
Speaker 1: global human donors shortage and the thousands of sick patients
Speaker 1: who wait every year for a new kidney. Already, the
Speaker 1: results have been astonishing. A progression from trial transplants on
Speaker 1: primates to transplant surgery on brain dead human recipients, and, finally,
Speaker 1: last March, in a development that made global headlines, to
Speaker 1: transplant into a living human recipient. Food and Drug Administration
Speaker 1: officials have since given e Genesis the green light to
Speaker 1: conduct a three patient clinical trial, a move that added
Speaker 1: to the surging interest the company had generated since last
Speaker 1: year's historic xeno transplant. Provided it stays on track and
Speaker 1: its trials proved successful, egenesis is CEO Mike Curtis says
Speaker 1: the company is making plans to grow its production capacity
Speaker 1: and he thinks the science could become widely available to
Speaker 1: the public before where the decade is out. In the
Speaker 1: long term, he added, I'd argue we are looking at
Speaker 1: a scenario where cross species transplants fully supplant yellow transplants,
Speaker 1: where we don't need human donors anymore. Researching that point
Speaker 1: will require further refinement of the technology and will demand
Speaker 1: more pigs like Margarita and scientists like Petersen. But more
Speaker 1: than anything, it will require trust on the part of
Speaker 1: those who go under the knife, who put their lives
Speaker 1: in the hands of this cutting edge science, and the
Speaker 1: doctors and hospitals championing it, and last year's successful Zeno transplant,
Speaker 1: a four hour procedure completed at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital
Speaker 1: that demanded untested faith, a heavy dose of desperation, and
Speaker 1: an immeasurable amount of luck, was perhaps the most scientific
Speaker 1: step forward into this new future. And it all started
Speaker 1: on a farm in the Midwest, where, on a cold
Speaker 1: March morning, a van idled in the dawn air, Its
Speaker 1: door slid open, a one year old pig was trundled inside,
Speaker 1: and the vehicle rolled down the drive, carrying what amounted
Speaker 1: to years of medical research, hope, and investment. Snorting in
Speaker 1: the back. For the next eighteen hours, as the van
Speaker 1: traveled eastward along I ninety, a million scenarios raced through
Speaker 1: Curtis's mind. You're sitting there thinking what if the van
Speaker 1: gets hit by a car, or what if Rick Slayman
Speaker 1: changes his mind. The room was silent, all other options
Speaker 1: had been depleted, and time was slipping away. Sitting at
Speaker 1: his desk in his office at Massachusetts General Hospital, looking
Speaker 1: across the room at a man who had become his
Speaker 1: friend as much as his patient. Nephrologist Winfried Williams asked
Speaker 1: his long shot question and waited for the response, are
Speaker 1: you familiar with the term zeno transplantation? Rick Slayman, who
Speaker 1: was running out of vasque culture vascular vasculature access for dialysis,
Speaker 1: shook his head. Williams wasn't. At this point. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, zeno transplantation was still a subject relegated to
Speaker 1: scientific journals and the occasional short news item on skin
Speaker 1: grafts or corneal transplants, So he did his best to
Speaker 1: explain that rapid advances in gene editing were offering hope
Speaker 1: that doctors might soon be able to place a pig
Speaker 1: kidney inside a human without the risk of acute and
Speaker 1: immediate rejection. Williams had been taking a lot, talking a
Speaker 1: lot with the folks at a biotech company across the
Speaker 1: Charles River called e Genesis. He'd learned that it had
Speaker 1: recently been granted approval from the FDA for an expanded
Speaker 1: access trial, a special allowance to treat patients who have
Speaker 1: no alternative treatments available to them. Williams did not need
Speaker 1: to tell Slayman that he qualified a supervisor with the
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Department of Transportation and a cheery man with the
Speaker 1: habit of charming nearly everyone he met. Slayman had struggled
Speaker 1: all his life with hypertension and dibert, frequently twinned conditions
Speaker 1: that had given way to end stage renal failure, significant
Speaker 1: destruction to his kidneys, and declining function in both. Slayman
Speaker 1: had been prescribed a course of dialysis, but as Williams
Speaker 1: later recalled, the treatment had quickly become intensely time consuming
Speaker 1: for his medical team and excruciatingly painful for Slayman. For
Speaker 1: dialysis to work properly, Williams told me, you need to
Speaker 1: have reliable vascular access. Traditionally, that axis is secured via
Speaker 1: an arterio venous fistula, a surgical connection between an artery
Speaker 1: and a vein and perforated by a pair of needles.
Speaker 1: One needle removes the patient's blood, the other channels back
Speaker 1: a cleaned version. The problem in mister Slaban's case, Williams said,
Speaker 1: is that he was experiencing significant blood clotting and it
Speaker 1: made it difficult to get a continuous flow during going
Speaker 1: during dialysis. In a given year, he was undergoing multiple
Speaker 1: declotting sessions at a hospital, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 1: It was a hard way for anyone to live, let
Speaker 1: alone someone as naturally energetic as Slayman, and the long
Speaker 1: term prognosis was grim. Williams knew effective dialysis does not
Speaker 1: reverse damage to the kidneys. It simply makes it possible
Speaker 1: for a patient to continue living. In the end, a
Speaker 1: transplant is required, provided an organ can be located. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, of the roughly ninety five thousand Americans waiting
Speaker 1: for a new kidney, only twenty five percent managed to
Speaker 1: obtain one. That December, Slaimant had become one of the
Speaker 1: lucky twenty five percent. His surgery, performed by a veteran
Speaker 1: Massachusetts general surgeon, Tatsuo Kawaii, was frictionless. The post surgery
Speaker 1: complications apparently minimal. Slaiman was able to go back to
Speaker 1: work full time, but within three years, familiar symptoms started
Speaker 1: to reappear. The swelling, the fatigue, tests revealed scarring on
Speaker 1: the donor kidney, and early evidence of recurrent diabetes. It
Speaker 1: was there to me, Williams told me that the organ
Speaker 1: wasn't going to survive for many more years. Once again,
Speaker 1: Slayman found himself thrust into a punishing cycle of dialysis
Speaker 1: and declouding. Later, doctors started him on a course of
Speaker 1: anti coagulants and installed a new fistula on his upper thigh.
Speaker 1: Nothing seemed to help. Instead, more worrying signs emerged, like
Speaker 1: hypercalemia or abnormally high potassium levels, which left slam Un
Speaker 1: breathless and sent him racing to the local emergency room
Speaker 1: for treatment. He had to undergo a lot of interventions
Speaker 1: that required anesthesia and long hospital stays, and I remember
Speaker 1: him saying, doctor, I'm not sure I can go on
Speaker 1: like this. Williams told me he was considering withdrawing completely
Speaker 1: from dialysis, and we knew that would have been a
Speaker 1: death sentence, which brought Williams to the idea of Zeno
Speaker 1: transplantation and his conversations with the Genesis. Williams trusted the
Speaker 1: scientists at the company. He visited their labs himself and
Speaker 1: marveled at what he saw there. Still, he knew his
Speaker 1: patient would likely have reservations like Slayman Williams as black,
Speaker 1: and his mind went instantly to the infamous Tuskegee experiments,
Speaker 1: in which the U. S Government conducted a forty year
Speaker 1: study of hundreds of black men with syphilis. But intentionally
Speaker 1: hid their diagnoses and withheld treatment be a penicillin when
Speaker 1: it became available. You have to understand that what happened
Speaker 1: at Tuskegee is hard wired in African Americans in the US.
Speaker 1: Williams said it has created deep fear about being used
Speaker 1: as a guinea pig. Over the course of several informed
Speaker 1: consent meetings, Williams was as clear with Slayman about the
Speaker 1: hazards of undergoing a cutting edge procedure as he had
Speaker 1: been about the hazards of doing nothing at all. It
Speaker 1: would not be easy. He would have to be brave,
Speaker 1: but Slayman said he understood in conversations with his family.
Speaker 1: His daughter p S. Slayman later recalled her father was
Speaker 1: confident of how much of a success the surgery would be,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't do anything but support him. The last
Speaker 1: informed consent session occurred in ear late twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: shortly before the transplant surgery was scheduled to take place.
Speaker 1: Williams told me that halfway through, Slamon burst into tears.
Speaker 1: He said, I want to do this, but I want
Speaker 1: you to be there for me, to take care of me,
Speaker 1: and I promised I would. It was such a poignant
Speaker 1: moment because mister Slaman was about to embark on a
Speaker 1: trip through truly uncharted waters. I could navigate, but he
Speaker 1: was going to have to be the pioneer. Although it
Speaker 1: feels cutting edge to day, the science of kidney zeno
Speaker 1: transplantation stretches back decades and originated in part with the
Speaker 1: work of a gifted Tulane University doctor and professor named
Speaker 1: Keith reamed as Sama. In the early nineteen sixties, Remit Sama,
Speaker 1: a cardio thoracic surgeon by training, began planning a series
Speaker 1: of animal to human surgeries involving kidneys taken from laboratory chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: This concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine for today. Your
Speaker 1: reader has been RuSHA thank you for listening, Keep on listening,
Speaker 1: and have a great day.