In a Maryland operating room one day in November 2025, doctors made medical history by transplanting a genetically modified pig kidney into a living patient. The kidney had been engineered to mimic human tissue and was grown in a pig, as an alternative to waiting around for a human organ donor who might never come. For decades, this idea lived at the edge of science fiction. Now it’s on the table, literally.
The patient is one of six taking part in the first clinical trial of pig-to-human kidney transplants. The goal: to see whether gene-edited pig kidneys can safely replace failing human ones.
