Pig Kidney Transplanted into Living Human for First Time
Doctors have transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human patient for the first time ever
Surgeons perform the world’s first genetically modified pig kidney transplant into a living human at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Massachusetts General Hospital
A man in Massachusetts just became the first person to receive a pig kidney transplant.
Scientists have been developing genetically engineered pigs as a way to address the critical lack of human organs available for transplant surgeries. Several proof-of-concept experiments with such pig organs have been done in recent years; one involved hooking a kidney up to a brain-dead organ donor’s body, and another involved performing a double-kidney transplant in a brain-dead patient. In addition, in 2022, a man underwent the first pig-heart transplant but died shortly thereafter.
In this latest medical milestone, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital transplanted a pig kidney into a living human patient for the first time. The 62-year-old patient, Richard Slayman, is recovering well after his four-hour surgery on March 16, and he’s expected to be discharged from Mass General soon, according to a statement from the hospital.
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“I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” Slayman said in the statement.
Slayman, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, has a history of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure and had been on dialysis for seven years before undergoing a human kidney transplant in 2018. However, five years later, the transplanted organ showed signs of…
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