A genetically modified pig kidney kept a patient named Tim Andrews alive without dialysis for 271 days, marking the first reported use of a pig kidney as a bridge to human organ transplantation.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by multiple independent, high-quality sources including Mass General Brigham's press release, Harvard Medical School news, NBC News, and a peer-reviewed publication in The Lancet. All key facts (patient name, duration, outcome, first-of-its-kind status) align across sources.
Sources
- Smart News: Science News - Smithsonian Magazine (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://news.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/pig-kidney-xenotransplant-bridge-to-human-transplant (news.massgeneralbrigham.org)
- https://hms.harvard.edu/news/patient-who-received-pig-kidney-becomes-first-progress-human-kidney-transplant (hms.harvard.edu)
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pig-kidney-works-record-271-days-body-surviving-american-rcna596101 (nbcnews.com)
- https://www.progress.org.uk/pig-kidney-serves-as-bridge-to-human-transplant-in-first-reported-case/ (progress.org.uk)