Pig Kidney Transplants for Humans

ROBERT MONTGOMERY DIRECTOR, NYU LANGONE TRANSPLANT INSTITUTE

Three years ago, doctors told Dr. Montgomery, who has a rare, progressive disease of the heart muscle, that he needed a transplant. He joined more than 106,800 Americans in organ-transplant purgatory, waiting for a donor organ—a wait 17 people fail to outlast each day. “This paradigm just isn’t working,” he says. “We need a renewable, unlimited source of organs.”

Dr. Montgomery has devoted much of his 20-plus years as a transplant surgeon to that end. He pioneered the use of organs from donors infected with hepatitis C and performed the first “domino paired donation,” which combines two or more donors and recipients in a kidney swap. In September, he and his team succeeded in transplanting a genetically-engineered pig kidney into a human body (since it was a test case, the recipient was a patient who had lost brain function). The body did not reject the kidney, and over a 54-hour test run, the pig organ performed like a normal human kidney. He expects a similar procedure to be performed on a live patient in the next year or so. Montgonery is optimistic that within a decade, pig organs will be a viable option for those on dialysis or in need of a kidney transplant—and eventually hearts, lungs and other organs.