Pig Kidney Transplant Surpasses 9‑Month Milestone, Offering Hope for Dialysis Patients

On November 22, 2025 a woman walked out of Massachusetts General Hospital with a kidney that, frankly, looks more like a pork chop than a human organ. The catch? It’s been working nonstop for 285 days – that’s a little over nine months – and she hasn’t needed a single dialysis session since.

That streak smashes the previous record of 271 days set by Tim Andrews, a man who also received a pig kidney back in early 2025. Both cases were made possible by eGenesis, a biotech firm that uses CRISPR to snip out pig genes that would normally trigger a fierce immune attack, and to insert a handful of human genes that help the organ blend in.

Why does this matter? In the United States more than 95,000 people are waiting for a kidney, yet only about 28,000 transplants happen each year. Most hopefuls spend years glued to dialysis machines – four‑hour appointments three times a week that are brutal on veins, exhausting, and only a stop‑gap.

Dialysis buys time, but the longer you’re on it, the sicker you get, and the odds of landing a human donor don’t improve fast enough. “Their health keeps sliding while the wait list barely moves,” says Mike Curtis, CEO of eGenesis. “A pig kidney can be a bridge – a living, breathing bridge.”

Getting that bridge, though, isn’t as simple as swapping out a heart‑shaped cookie cutter. The scientists first knocked out the pig’s α‑gal and other carbohydrate genes that the human immune system loves to spot. Then they added human proteins that calm the immune response and help the organ hook up to blood vessels without triggering clotting.

The woman’s case is the fifth time eGenesis has used the FDA’s “expanded access” pathway – a special route that lets seriously ill patients try experimental therapies when no approved options exist. The FDA has given the green light for a more formal trial slated for 2027, targeting up to 33 patients aged 50‑70 who are already on the kidney‑donor waiting list.

Andrews’ experience taught researchers a valuable lesson. After about eight months his pig kidney began to fail because of tiny clots – a condition called thrombotic microangiopathy. Armed with that knowledge, the transplant team tweaked immunosuppressive regimens for the newer patients, hoping to keep the organ’s blood flow clear.

So far the results are encouraging. One patient who spent eight months on a pig kidney has already received a human transplant, and the woman who crossed the nine‑month line reports a quality‑of‑life boost that dialysis never gave her. The next goal? Push that functional window to a full year.

It’s still early days, and the science is anything but a silver bullet. But seeing a foreign organ, edited at the DNA level, ticking along like a home‑grown kidney is a powerful reminder that the organ shortage might finally meet a creative, if unconventional, solution.