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First pig kidney transplant in a person: what it means for the future

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2024-03-28 18:00:05

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A pig kidney is unpacked for transplant into 62-year-old Richard Slayman of Massachusetts. Credit: Massachusetts General Hospital

The early success of the first transplant of a pig kidney into a living person has raised researchers’ hopes that larger clinical trials involving pig organs will soon become a reality. Such trials could bring xenotransplantation — the use of animal organs in human recipients — into the clinic.

The recipient of the pig kidney is a 62-year-old man with end-stage renal failure named Richard Slayman. He is recovering well after the surgery on 16 March, according to his transplant surgeon. The kidney was taken from a miniature pig carrying a record 69 genomic edits, which were aimed at preventing rejection of the donated organ and reducing the risk that a virus lurking in the organ could infect the recipient.

The case demonstrates that, at least in the short term, these organs are safe and function as expected, says Luhan Yang, chief executive of Qihan Biotech in Hangzhou, China, and one of the founders of the biotechnology firm that produced the pigs, eGenesis in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company is in discussion with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about planning clinical trials for pig kidney and paediatric heart transplants, as well as for the use of pig livers that would be connected to the recipient from outside the body, says Wenning Qin, a molecular biologist at eGenesis.