First-ever pig-to-human lung transplant attempted in brain-dead person in China

By Nicoletta Lanese – LiveScience

In a first, scientists in China transplanted a lung from a pig into a human so they could see how the host immune system handled the procedure.

In a first-of-its-kind experiment, doctors in China transplanted a lung from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead person.

Similar experiments involving brain-dead patients have previously taken place in the U.S., but they involved different pig organs, such as kidneys and hearts, and a previous experiment in China involved a pig liver. These experiments have paved the way to transplants of pig organs into living human patients, although only a handful of those procedures have been performed so far.