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Surgeons Leonardo Riella and Tatsuo Kawai with patient Tim Andrews after Andrews\u2019 xenotransplant in 2025. (Kate Flock\/Massachusetts General Hospital) <\/p>\n
A man who lived with a pig kidney for 271 days before later receiving a human organ shows how the practice of xenotransplantation could help bridge the gap for patients on the donor list, a new paper found.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mass General Brigham paper was published Sept. 3 in\u00a0The Lancet<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tim Andrews\u2019 pig kidney transplant <\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n According to a news release from\u00a0Mass General Brigham<\/a>, 66-year-old Tim Andrews received a genetically modified pig kidney transplant in January 2025. The pig organ transplant \u2013 known as xenotransplantation \u2013 allowed Andrews to skip dialysis for 271 days before he had the organ removed Oct. 23 because its function was declining.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andrews resumed dialysis before receiving a human kidney transplant in January 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n Researchers say Andrews\u2019 case is a prime example of how xenotransplantation<\/a> could “bridge the gap between end-stage kidney failure and a human transplant, allowing a patient to forgo dialysis in the meantime.”<\/p>\n RELATED: Groundbreaking pancreatic cancer drug approved by FDA: What we know<\/a><\/p>\n “The organ shortage is the greatest crisis we have right now in transplantation,” said lead author Dr. Leonardo Riella, of the Center for Transplantation Sciences and the Division of Nephrology at Mass General Brigham. “We know that the best treatment option for patients with end-stage kidney disease who have developed renal failure is transplantation, but we simply don\u2019t have enough human organs to transplant in a timely manner. Our vision is that xenotransplantation could help address this gap\u2014initially as a bridge to get patients off dialysis while they wait for a human donor kidney, and potentially, as we establish long-term safety and durability, as a destination therapy in its own right.”<\/p>\n The history of xenotransplantation <\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n Andrews\u2019 experience illustrates lessons researchers have learned with each experiment. The first attempts using pig organs gene-edited to be more humanlike \u2013 two hearts and two kidneys \u2013 were short-lived.<\/p>\n The\u00a0first one in 2024, also at Massachusetts General Hospital<\/a>, resulted in the patient surviving 52 days before death from cardiac causes unrelated to the transplant.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED:\u00a0Alabama woman has pig kidney removed after a record 130 days<\/a><\/p>\n Then researchers began considering patients not nearly as sick as prior recipients for these experiments \u2014 and an\u00a0Alabama woman\u2019s pig kidney lasted 130 days<\/a> before it had to be removed last spring, the record Andrews surpassed.<\/p>\n RELATED:\u00a0Pig kidney transplanted into man in surgical first<\/a><\/p>\n By the numbers:<\/p>\n More than 100,000 people, most needing kidneys, are on the U.S. transplant list, and thousands die waiting.<\/p>\n “The patients are the true pioneers here,” Riella said. “By stepping forward and being willing to participate in these early-stage studies, they are advancing the science. Without their trust and courage, we would not be able to do what we do.”<\/p>\n The Source: This report includes information from Mass General Brigham hospital and The Associated Press.<\/p>\n Health Care<\/a>Health<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Surgeons Leonardo Riella and Tatsuo Kawai with patient Tim Andrews after Andrews\u2019 xenotransplant in 2025. (Kate Flock\/Massachusetts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-623105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/tjcaxvr35b9u5rj7.jpg\")
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