NYU surgeon transplants an engineered pig kidney into the outside of a brain-dead patient (Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health)

An­oth­er day, an­oth­er xeno­trans­plant, as Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics looks to beat com­peti­tors to sci-fi-es­que break­through

Xeno­trans­plan­ta­tion is hav­ing a mo­ment.

Last Oc­to­ber, a team from NYU suc­cess­ful­ly trans­plant­ed a kid­ney from a pig in­to a brain-dead pa­tient, al­though ob­servers cast doubt on the im­por­tance of the ex­per­i­ment. Then, ear­li­er this month, sur­geons at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land trans­plant­ed a pig heart in­to a dy­ing hu­man, who ap­pears to still be sta­ble.

Now, an­oth­er group is plant­i­ng a flag in the xeno­trans­plan­ta­tion field. Sur­geons at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma at Birm­ing­ham said Thurs­day they have achieved the first kid­ney trans­plant from a pig to a brain-dead pa­tient, pub­lish­ing their peer-re­viewed find­ings on­line. The team, aim­ing to dif­fer­en­ti­ate it­self from the oth­ers through the ge­net­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tions used, is hop­ing there’s now enough re­search to soon be­gin clin­i­cal xeno­trans­plan­ta­tion stud­ies.

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