How long can a pig kidney survive inside a human body?
One man lived 271 days with a gene-edited pig kidney - and even threw the first pitch at a Red Sox game.
The answer
Tim Andrews, a 67-year-old retired engineer from New Hampshire, became the longest-living recipient of a pig-to-human kidney transplant in 2025, surviving 271 days before the organ was surgically removed due to declining function. The pig kidney, engineered by biotech firm eGenesis with 69 CRISPR gene edits to reduce immune rejection, gave Andrews a reprieve from dialysis. During those months, he regained enough energy to throw the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game. The FDA approved clinical studies for pig-to-human kidney transplants in 2025, potentially addressing the crisis of over 100,000 Americans on the organ transplant waitlist.
Source: Nature Medicine
- xenotransplantation
- crispr
- organ-transplant
- medicine
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