Surgeons Perform Living Patient Pig Kidney Transplant

On March 16, 2024, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into Richard Slayman, a living patient with end-stage renal disease. The pig, supplied by eGenesis, carried 69 gene edits including porcine endogenous retrovirus inactivation and human-compatible immune modifications. Lead surgeon Tatsuo Kawai performed the four-hour procedure. Prior pig kidney transplants had been performed only in legally brain-dead recipients; this was the first xenotransplant into a living human. Slayman died approximately two months later from a cardiac event judged unrelated to the transplant; the kidney functioned throughout that interval.