American surgeons transplanted pig kidney into human patient for the first time ever
A 62-year-old man with end-stage renal disease has become the first person to receive a new kidney from a genetically modified pig, Reuters reports with reference to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston
The operation was performed on March 16th, it lasted four hours and marked ‘a major milestone in the quest to provide more readily available organs to patients’, the hospital said in a statement.
"The patient, Richard Slayman from Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well and expected to be discharged soon," the hospital said. In 2018, the man had a human kidney transplant after seven years of dialysis, but the organ failed five years later and he resumed treatment.
The kidney was provided by eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts, from a pig that had been genetically edited to remove genes harmful to a human recipient and add certain human genes to improve compatibility. The company also inactivated pig-specific viruses that can infect humans.
