Richard “Rick” Slayman, the first human to receive a gene-hacked pig kidney transplant, has passed away two months after the groundbreaking procedure. The cause of his death is yet to be determined, but Massachusetts General Hospital, where the procedure was conducted, stated that there’s no indication that his passing was the result of the recent transplant.
Slayman suffered from end-stage kidney disease and had received a human donor kidney in 2018, which started to fail last year, leading to him developing congestive heart failure. The new pig kidney he received in March was created by biotech company eGenesis.
Despite Slayman’s unfortunate passing, the procedure is still an important step forward for xenotransplantation, the nascent field of harvesting donor organs, tissues, and cells, from one species for transplantation in another. The need for alternatives is as dire as it has ever been. More than 100,000 Americans are currently waiting to receive a human donor transplant and only 25,000 kidneys are transplanted each year. About 12 people die while waiting for a transplant each day in the US.
Since Slayman’s procedure, another woman from New Jersey became the second human to receive such a pig kidney. Weeks later, she is still alive.
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