Pig Kidney Transplanted Into Human for First Time

The person was given immunosuppressant drugs to prevent organ rejection, failing which the human immune system ’reacts incredibly violently.’

Pigs walk on a platform into a cage to be loaded onto a cargo plane en route to China from the Brest-Bretagne Airport in Guipavas, Brittany, France, on March 10, 2020.  Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images

The gene-edited kidney of a pig has been transplanted into a human successfully for the first time, with the animal being genetically modified to make the organ compatible.

The 4-hour surgery was conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) on March 16, according to an MGH press release on Thursday. The kidney came from a pig that underwent 69 genomic edits to remove “harmful pig genes” and add “certain human genes to improve its compatibility with humans.” The edits, made using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, were done to ensure that the human body would not reject the foreign kidneys.