Researchers in China announced that they have performed a successful transplant of a gene-edited pig kidney into a female patient. The surgery took place in early March and the patient is doing well, Dr. Lin Wang of Xijing Hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an said in a press briefing about 3 weeks after the surgery.
The patient is only the third person in the world living with a pig kidney. The other 2 individuals are an Alabama woman who received a transplant at NYU Langone Health on November 25, 2024, and a New Hampshire man who had transplant surgery on January 25, 2025, at Massachusetts General Hospital.
A Massachusetts man and a New Jersey woman who received pig kidneys in 2024 both died later.
In addition to the successful kidney xenotransplantation, the same Chinese researchers reported in Nature that a pig liver they transplanted into a brain-dead person survived for 10 days, with no early signs of rejection.
United Therapeutics and eGenesis received approval from the FDA in early 2025 to begin the first clinical trials of pig kidney transplants.
Source: AP
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