Surgeons at University of Maryland Medical Center performing the first pig-to-human transplant (University of Maryland School of Medicine)

In his­toric first, sur­geons trans­plant a ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pig heart in­to a dy­ing pa­tient

Two and a half months af­ter an NYU team du­bi­ous­ly claimed to have per­formed the first ever pig-to-hu­man or­gan trans­plant, a team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land Med­ical Cen­ter ap­pears to have ac­tu­al­ly done it.

The cen­ter an­nounced Mon­day evening that sur­geons there suc­cess­ful­ly trans­plant­ed a ge­net­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pig heart in­to a 57-year-old pa­tient with ter­mi­nal heart dis­ease. The pa­tient, David Ben­nett, was too sick to qual­i­fy for a hu­man donor and had run out of oth­er op­tions.

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