Scientists celebrate as pig kidney continues to function in human body

Surgeons hope that cross-species organ transplants could eventually help save lives of human patients.

Surgeons in the United States have announced that a pig kidney they transplanted into the body of a brain-dead human patient has functioned normally for more than a month, a promising sign in the effort to address widespread organ donation needs.

Surgeons at the New York University

Langone Transplant Institute said on Wednesday that the milestone is the longest a pig kidney had functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one.

“We have a genetically edited pig kidney surviving for over a month in a human,” institute director Robert Montgomery told reporters.

He said the results provide “further assurances” for any future studies in living patients. The pig kidney had been genetically modified to omit a gene that produces biomolecules that human immune systems attack and reject.

Scientists hope that cross-species transplants could help deliver assistance to the many people who are waiting for potentially life-saving organs.

Wednesday’s breakthrough began with the transfer of a pig kidney into the body of Maurice “Mo” Miller, a man who had died suddenly at the age of 57 and whose body was donated to science by his family.