In a world first, surgeons in Boston have transplanted a genetically altered pig kidney into a 62-year-old man. The procedure is a step toward providing more readily available organs to patients who are in desperate need of a transplant.
The four-hour surgery was carried out on March 16 at Massachusetts General Hospital. Shortly after the kidney was placed in the patient’s body, it started producing urine—a sign that it was functioning as it should. Tatsuo Kawai, one of the surgeons involved, said the operating room erupted in applause. “It was truly the most beautiful kidney I have ever seen,” he said in a press conference on Thursday.
The patient, Richard Slayman
→ Continue reading at Wired - Science