Pig kidney transplanted into human patient for 1st time ever

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.

"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.

Related: What happens to your body when you're an organ donor?

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 failure. He restarted dialysis in 2023, which caused serious complications that required regular hospital visits to manage.

"He would have had to wait five to six years for a human kidney. He would not have been able to survive it," Dr. Winfred Williams, associate chief of the nephrology division at Mass General and the patient's primary kidney doctor, told The New York Times.