Pigs Can Help Solve Our Organ Donation Problem
Thanks to Crispr technology, the idea of transplanting a pig kidney into a human is no longer science fiction. And it could be lifesaving.
Life-saving.
Photographer: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty ImagesThere’s long been a gap between the relatively small number of organs available for transplant and the long waiting lists of potential recipients. This week, the world got a little closer to a future in which pigs — yes, pigs — could narrow that gap.
A new study, published in Nature, showed that a monkey lived for two years after receiving a gene-edited pig kidney. The remarkable feat, one of several this year in the once-stagnant field of animal-to-human transplantation (also known as xenotransplantation), is an important step. We might finally be at a point where edited organs from one species can help patients of another.