In a major scientific advance, a pig kidney is successfully transplanted into a human

[Jilly_in_VA]

Scientists temporarily attached a pig's kidney to a human body and watched it begin to work, a small step in the decades-long quest to one day use animal organs for life-saving transplants.

Pigs have been the most recent research focus to address the organ shortage, but among the hurdles: A sugar in pig cells, foreign to the human body, causes immediate organ rejection. The kidney for this experiment came from a gene-edited animal, engineered to eliminate that sugar and avoid an immune system attack.

Surgeons attached the pig kidney to a pair of large blood vessels outside the body of a deceased recipient so they could observe it for two days. The kidney did what it was supposed to do — filter waste and produce urine — and didn't trigger rejection.

"It had absolutely normal function," said Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the surgical team last month at NYU Langone Health. "It didn't have this immediate rejection that we have worried about."

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/20/1047560631/in-a-major-scientific-advance-a-pig-kidney-is-successfully-transplanted-into-a-h
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But is it kosher?

[CanonRay]

1. Pigman lives!

[mopinko]

2. last line- "should we be doing this just because we can?" how asinine.

no, we should do it because 12 people a day die waiting.

[Jilly_in_VA]

3. Exactly

And people eat pork anyway. I know the animal rights activists will be jumping up and down, but they can get a grip...or donate one of their own kidneys.