First Recipient of Pig Kidney Transplant Heads Home

The first person to have a pig kidney transplanted into his body was on Wednesday discharged from Massachusetts General Hospital. Rick Slayman, 62, who underwent the transplant about two weeks ago, will continue to recover at home, CBS News reports. "This moment—leaving the hospital today with one of the cleanest bills of health I've had in a long time—is one I wished would come for many years. Now, it's a reality and one of the happiest moments of my life," he said in a statement. "I'm excited to resume spending time with my family, friends, and loved ones free from the burden of dialysis that has affected my quality of life for many years."

Slayman had end-stage kidney disease when the surgery was done, doctors said in a statement cited by the BBC. Since the procedure, he is no longer on dialysis, and doctors say the kidney, which was genetically edited to remove harmful pig genes and add some human genes in order to make it more compatible with a person, is working well. "At MGH alone, there are over 1,400 patients on the waiting list for a kidney transplant," says one of the doctors who led the transplant. "Some of these patients will unfortunately die or get too sick to be transplanted due to the long waiting time on dialysis. I am firmly convinced that xenotransplantation [interspecies organ transplants] represents a promising solution to the organ shortage crisis." (More xenotransplantation stories.)