Chinese researchers achieve world's first pig-to-human liver, double-kidney transplant

(ECNS) - A university in South China announced on Monday that a research team led by Sun Xuyong has successfully transplanted a complete pig liver and two pig kidneys into a single human recipient.

The procedure marks the world's first successful orthotopic xenotransplantation of a gene-edited pig liver and two kidneys into a human body.

The recipient was a 53-year-old brain-dead man whose family consented to the surgery. The donor organs came from a gene-edited Bama pig from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

To prevent hyperacute rejection, the researchers edited six genes in the donor pig. Three pig genes associated with immune rejection were then removed, while three human genes were introduced to improve blood coagulation and immune compatibility.

Less than 24 hours after the transplant, the pig liver began producing bile, and both pig kidneys started functioning normally. The recipient's blood creatinine levels gradually returned to normal, indicating that the kidney was working.

The operation used Sun's orthotopic liver-kidney combined transplantation technique, which allows surgeons to replace the liver and both kidneys through a single surgical incision.

According to the research team, the study is the first to demonstrate that multiple organs from a gene-edited pig can function simultaneously inside a human body. The achievement marks a significant step toward clinical application of multi-organ xenotransplantation and offers new hope for addressing the global shortage of donor organs.

(By Gong Weiwei)