← No. 029 WED 28 OCT 2026

A pig kidney worked right away in a person.

Pig kidney transplant — Boston, Massachusetts

On February 7, 2025, the New England Journal of Medicine reported a 62‑year‑old patient at Massachusetts General Hospital who received a pig kidney engineered with 69 genetic changes. The organ made urine right away and showed no instant, catastrophic rejection. A week later, the team saw early T‑cell–driven rejection, which reversed with treatment. The case shows that a carefully edited pig organ can begin doing kidney work in a person.

Why it’s interesting

Fig. 029 A pig kidney plumbed to human vessels and ureter; the droplets mark urine flow that began immediately after connection in the NEJM 2025 case.

Why it’s interesting

I assumed a pig organ would fail in us on contact. Seeing one start to work immediately shifts the line between species from a wall to a set of problems you can, sometimes, engineer around.

The longer version

The New England Journal of Medicine detailed a 62‑year‑old patient at Massachusetts General Hospital who received a pig kidney edited in 69 places: three sugar‑making genes removed, seven human genes added, and latent pig retroviruses inactivated. As soon as surgeons connected the vessels, the kidney began to make urine, and there was no immediate, catastrophic (hyperacute) rejection.

Follow‑ups in Nature Communications (2025) and Nature Medicine (2026) profiled the same case, confirming the design and the early course: prompt function without hyperacute rejection, followed by an early T‑cell–mediated rejection within the first week that responded to intensified therapy. Together they show that, under careful editing and immunosuppression, a pig kidney can start doing kidney work in a living person.

Edition: No. 029
Date: Wednesday 28 October 2026
Subject: Pig kidney transplant
Locality: Boston, Massachusetts
Period: February 7, 2025
Field: life
Evidence: 4 sources, 1 primary

See how we got here

Found after 24 research paths · Selected from 6 candidates

01 Organ shortage Human kidneys are scarce, waits are long.
02 Transplant rejection The fastest kind can strike within minutes.
03 Pig cell sugars These surface sugars trigger human antibodies.
04 Gene‑edited pigs Remove sugars, add human genes, silence pig viruses.
05 Pig kidney in person NEJM 2025: worked at once, no hyperacute rejection.
06 Immune profiling Early T‑cell rejection appeared later and reversed.
→ A pig kidney worked right away in a person.

Sources

Nothing publishes without independent sources. How we verify →

1
Xenotransplantation of a Porcine Kidney for End‑Stage Kidney Disease
New England Journal of Medicine · 2025 · peer reviewed Primary

Primary case report confirming 62‑year‑old recipient, immediate graft function, and the 69‑edit donor design (3 glycan KOs, PERV inactivation, 7 human transgenes). ([doi.org](https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2412747?utm_source=openai))

doi.org
2
Physiologic Homeostasis in a Living Human after Pig Kidney Xenotransplantation
Nature Communications · 2025 · peer reviewed

Details the same MGH case: 69 edits (3KO, 7 human transgenes, PERV inactivation), early graft function, and notes rejection on POD 8—i.e., no immediate hyperacute rejection. ([nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63153-3))

nature.com
3
Immune profiling in a living human recipient of a gene‑edited pig kidney
Nature Medicine · 2026 · peer reviewed

Corroborates that the 62‑year‑old received a 69‑edit pig kidney; reports early T‑cell–mediated (not hyperacute) rejection that reversed with intensified immunosuppression. ([nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-04053-3))

nature.com
4
Design and testing of a humanized porcine donor for xenotransplantation
Nature · 2023 · peer reviewed

Technical background on the 69‑edit donor design: triple glycan antigen knockouts, seven human transgenes, and PERV inactivation used by the MGH team’s donor lineage. ([pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/10567564/?utm_source=openai))

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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