First Recipient of Genetically Modified Pig Kidney Transplant Dies 2 Months After Procedure

Richard "Rick" Slayman, the first person to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant, passed away. However, the doctors said the procedure didn't cause his death.

First Genetically Modified Pig Kidney Recipient Dies

Slayman, at the age of 62, underwent the transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in March. According to surgeons, the pig kidney should last for at least two years. But about two months after the surgery, he passed away.

In a statement, the transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital expressed their sincere sadness over Slayman's demise and sent their condolences to his family. They said they could find no evidence that the transplant caused his death.

The man from Weymouth, Massachusetts, was the first living individual to undergo the surgery. In the past, brain-dead donors have received temporary kidney transplants from pigs. After receiving heart transplants from pigs, two men passed away in a matter of months.

Slayman received a kidney transplant from the hospital in 2018, but when it began to fail last year, he had to return for dialysis. His doctors recommended a kidney transplant from a pig when problems from dialysis became prevalent.

Slayman's family was grateful to the doctors who performed the transplant. According to them, the xenotransplant gave them seven more weeks with Slayman, and they would remember those memories in their hearts and minds. According to them, Slayman did the surgery to provide for others who needed a transplant to survive hope.

"Rick accomplished that goal and his hope and optimism will endure forever," the family said.

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Pig Kidney Transplant in Brain-Dead Man

In August 2023, the New York team successfully implanted a pig kidney into a man who was brain dead, marking a significant advancement toward surgery. For over a month, the kidney functioned normally. It was the longest time a pig kidney functioned in a deceased person. The experiment led the researchers to want to try it on live patients.

According to Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the transplant institute at NYU Langone, the pig kidney functioned similarly to a human organ. The family that donated the corpse said they agreed with the experiment in the hopes that pig kidneys could eventually help address the severe shortage of transplantable organs.

In 2022, another man, David Bennett, received a heart transplant from a pig in a groundbreaking experiment at a Maryland hospital. At first, the pig heart functioned, and Bennett was progressively getting better, according to updates from the Maryland hospital.

They even posted a video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed and working with his physical therapist. However, he passed away after two months. Bennett outlived a dying child who lived 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.

Xenotransplantation refers to using animal tissues, cells, or organs to treat human patients. Since the human immune system instantly destroyed any alien animal tissue, such attempts were doomed to failure. Modified pigs with more human-like organs have been used in recent experiments.

The majority of the almost 100,000 individuals on the country's transplant waiting list are kidney sufferers, and thousands of them pass away each year before their turn comes.