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From liver to kidney: Chinese scientists pass another milestone in pig organ transplants for humans

  • A team of scientists successfully transplanted a gene-edited pig’s organ into a brain-dead patient just weeks after a similar procedure with a liver
  • The technique could one day help the million or so Chinese patients with end-stage kidney disease who may need a life-saving transplant

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Pigs are used for transplants because of the similarities between their organs and human ones. Photo: Shutterstock Images
Victoria Bela
Chinese doctors have transplanted a pig’s kidney with multiple gene edits into a brain-dead human recipient, just weeks after the same team performed the world’s first pig liver transplant on a human.
The latest operation was the first of its kind in China and follows previous transplants in the United States.

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Pig hearts successfully transplanted in brain-dead patients

Pig hearts successfully transplanted in brain-dead patients

“As of April 7, the transplanted kidney has been working continuously for 13 days,” Qin Weijun, director of the Air Force Medical University Xijing Hospital, told Science and Technology Daily on Monday.

“It is functioning well in the recipient’s body and producing urine normally.”

The transplant was conducted on March 25, only a couple of weeks after the team performed the pig liver transplant. In both cases the patients’ families agreed to the procedure to help advance medical science, the university said.

Kidney transplants are the only cure for end-stage kidney disease. Although over a million patients in China suffer from the condition, only 10,000 transplants are performed every year, the Air Force Medical University’s department of urology said in a WeChat post last week.

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