Scientists recently succeeded in temporarily attaching a pig’s kidney to a human body, a first step that could open up the possibility that pig organs can be used more widely as transplants one day.

Researchers at New York University’s Langone Medical School transplanted a pig kidney onto a human without triggering an immediate rejection from the human immune system for the first time. The kidney was attached to the body of a recently deceased woman, with permission from her family, and observed for two days to see how it would be responded to.

Pigs organs have for years been used as a substitute in humans because of certain similarities between the two. However, the use of pig organs specifically as a transplant has been stunted by a rejection of the sugar molecule, Glycan, by humans’ immune systems. Why the NYU experiment was successful was because it relied on a genetically altered pig from Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics.

These gene-edited animals were produced to suppress the Glycan molecules rejected by humans, creating so-called “GalSafe” pigs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved what it called a "first of its kind international genomic alteration" for pigs on Dec. 14, 2020.

If pig kidneys can be used in lieu of human ones without negative side effects, it could go some way in providing more transplants for those in need of them.

The National Diabetes And Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) estimates that more than 661,000 Americans have kidney failure and about 193,000 of these live with a functioning kidney transplant. The Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA) says that 17 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant.

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