It’s not just a marvel of modern medicine.
The kidney filtered waste (just like it was supposed to) and showed no signs of rejection after two days.
Over 100,000 Americans are on the list for an organ transplant — and 17 people die every day while waiting.
Using organs from other species could offer a readily available solution to a deadly problem.
We’ve used heart valves from cows and pigs since the 1960s, but have yet to transplant entire organs to live humans without rejection.
French doctor Jean Baptiste Denys conducted the first documented human blood transfusion — using blood from either a dog or lamb that he injected into a young man’s body.
The patient lived — and Denys continued his transfusion experiments.
He was later tried for murder when one of his patients died. Blood transfusions were outlawed in Europe for decades afterward.
Doctors completed the first transplantation of a cornea from a pig to a human. However, the procedure was unsuccessful in the long term.
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In the 1800s, surgeons also experimented with skin grafts from animals, such as frogs, to humans.
Surgeon Alexis Carrel won the Nobel Prize for developing a technique to “sew” blood vessels together, paving the way for modern-day surgeries and organ transplants.
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The recipient, who was dying of a cardiovascular disease that caused both his legs to be previously amputated, only lived a few hours after the transplant.
One of the most famous modern-day xenotransplant attempts was the case of Baby Fae, an infant girl with life-threatening congenital heart disease who received a baboon heart.
A group of doctors from Sweden transplanted pig pancreas cells into human patients with diabetes, in an attempt to remedy the condition.
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However, the transplants did not appear to have any long-term clinical benefit.
An international team of researchers reported they used CRISPR gene editing to inactivate pig viruses that cause immune reactions in humans.
Two baboons living with transplanted pig hearts survived for over six months — the longest of any recorded xenotransplant in history.
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This Nature study marked an important milestone — demonstrating the ability of one species to survive with a transplanted organ from another.
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Several biotech companies like eGenesis and Revivicor are funding research into modified pig organs, and aim for a future where they’re regularly used in human transplants.
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Hurdles remain, but some researchers are optimistic that successful xenotransplants are right around the corner.