A tale of 5 xenografts

Specialists around the world await updates from China on the first man to receive a gene-edited pig liver. In the meantime, the last pig kidney transplanted in the United States has already stopped working and been removed, returning the patient to dialysis. And before her, three other U.S. patients had survived only a few weeks after surgery involving either heart or kidney. However, it would be wrong to conclude that xenotransplantations are falling short of expectations: the individual interventions authorized under compassionate care have taught physicians and researchers useful lessons ahead of the first clinical trials that the Food and Drug Administration may authorize in the coming years. Let’s keep our fingers crossed as we wait for the well-deserved happy ending.

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