“Pig hearts to be tested in humans” read a headline in the Financial Times in September 1995. The article quoted confident predictions that porcine hearts, genetically engineered to avoid rejection, would be transplanted into patients the following year — helping to ease the worldwide shortage of human organs.
More than 25 years passed before that forecast finally came true. Last month surgeons at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore successfully replaced the failing heart of a 57-year-old man with a fresh one from a pig with 10 gene edits. Four weeks later the patient, David Bennett, continues to recover with no signs of rejection.
