Man who received pig kidney transplant returns home

Rick Slayman, 62, left Massachusetts General Hospital on Wednesday with the cleanest bill of health he’d had in a long time. He described the homecoming as one of the happiest moments of his life. Roughly two weeks ago, he received a genetically altered pig kidney after suffering from end-stage kidney disease.

Why is this transplant such a big deal? Slayman is the first living person to receive a pig kidney transplant successfully, Massachusetts General Hospital said in a statement last month. The pig kidney came from an eGenesis facility in Cambridge, Mass. The Food and Drug Administration approved the transplant, according to eGenesis.

Scientists at eGenesis had genetically edited the pig donor with CRISPR-Cas9 technology to make its organs more compatible with humans. The researchers also eliminated certain viruses that could infect a human organ recipient.

What does all this mean? The success of the transplant could signal a breakthrough in transplant science that could help save thousands of lives. Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Mass General hopes the transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of kidney failure patients worldwide.

More than 800,000 people in the United States suffer from end-stage renal disease or kidney disease, according to a statement by eGenesis. A transplant is considered the best treatment for the condition, but demand for transplants far outpaces supply. Roughly 90,000 people on the U.S. organ transplant list are waiting for kidneys, according to eGenesis. Physicians perform only about 25,000 of the procedures each year across the country.

eGenesis says that if its human-compatible donor organs prove viable, they could help meet the shortage and provide an alternative to dying without a transplant.

Dig deeper: Read R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s column in WORLD Opinions examining whether using pig organs in humans is morally appropriate.