US surgeons transplant pig kidney into living human — first time ever

Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States have transplanted a pig’s kidney into a living human recipient for the first time.

In a statement announcing the “major milestone”, the hospital said a genetically edited pig kidney was used, while the surgery took four hours.

The surgeons called the transplant a “success” and said the patient is recovering well and is expected to be discharged on Saturday.

The patient, 62-year-old Richard Slayman, has been living with type 2 diabetes and hypertension for many years.

He was on dialysis for many years before receiving a kidney transplant from a deceased human donor in December 2018 from the hospital.

The kidney began to fail about five years later and Slayman was forced to resume dialysis in May 2023.

The hospital said the kidney was provided by eGenesis, a pharmaceutical company, based in Cambridge, from a pig donor genetically-edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

The harmful pig genes were removed while certain human genes were added to improve their compatibility.

The scientists also inactivated retroviruses found in pigs to reduce the risk of infection in humans.

Tatsuo Kawai, a member of the surgical team, attributed the success of the transplant to the efforts of thousands of scientists and physicians over several decades.

“We are privileged to have played a significant role in this milestone. Our hope is that this transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from kidney failure,” Kawai said.

This is not the first time an animal organ has been transplanted into a human patient.

In 2023, researchers at NYU Langone Health in New York City transplanted a genetically engineered pig kidney into a 58-year-old man who had been declared brain dead.

Also in 2022 and 2023, the University of Maryland transplanted two genetically-modified pig hearts into terminally ill patients.

But both patients, David Bennett, and Lawrence Facuette, ended up passing away, the first due to heart failure and the second due to organ rejection.