The transplanted kidney was obtained from a pig genetically engineered to grow an organ unlikely to be rejected by the human body
A photo provided by NYU Langone Health shows a surgical team at the hospital in New York examining a pig kidney attached to the body of a deceased recipient for any signs of rejection in September 2021. From left are Drs. Zoe A. Stewart-Lewis, Robert A. Montgomery, Bonnie E. Lonze and Jeffrey Stern. Image: Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health via The New York Times
Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients. Researchers have long sought to grow organs in pigs that are suitable for transplantation into humans. Technologies like cloning and genetic engineering have brought that vision closer to reality in recent years, but testing these experimental organs in humans has presented daunting ethical questions.
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