Pig kidney: first patient with transplant died

Rick Slayman was the first person in the world to have a genetically modified pig kidney inserted during a four-hour operation. The 62-year-old dialysis patient suffered from advanced kidney disease. He received a human donor kidney in 2018, but it failed last year.

The Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, said on Saturday evening that staff were deeply saddened by the sudden death of Rick Slayman. There is no evidence that his death was related to the transplant in late March. The hospital did not provide any information about the cause of death.

“Beacon of Hope”
“Mr. Slayman will always be seen as a beacon of hope for countless transplant patients worldwide. We are deeply grateful for his trust and willingness to advance the field of xenotransplantation,” the hospital wrote in its statement.

There is a global shortage of human donor organs
Due to the shortage of human donor organs, medical research is increasingly using animal organs. The branch of research is called xenotransplantation, which usually means the transplantation of organs from one species to another species. The pig kidney for Slayman had a biotechnology laboratory remove pig genes that could be harmful to humans and add certain human genes before transplantation.

The shortage of donor organs is a problem worldwide. According to the clinic, there are more than 1,400 people on the waiting list for a kidney transplant at MGH alone, and that number is almost 90,000 nationwide. Since 2022, doctors in the US have also implanted genetically modified pig hearts in two patients for the first time in the world. However, both patients died within two months after surgery.