Pig kidney xenotransplantation gives hope to organ supply future

After 61 days of observation, NYU Langone Health doctors this month completed the longest-documented case of a genetically engineered pig kidney functioning in a human body.

The procedure, known as a xenotransplant, which involves the transplant of an animal organ into a human, was performed on July 14, and led by Robert Montgomery, the H. Leon Pachter, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Surgery and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. The organ was removed Sept. 13, from a 58-year-old man who had been on a ventilator, with his family's consent, after being declared dead by neurologic criteria before the xenotransplant.