A team of surgeons in China has successfully transplanted a genetically modified pig lung into a human for the first time. Researchers indicate this is a significant step towards clinical trials of animal-to-human lung transplants.
The left lung, taken from a pig engineered with six genomic edits, was transplanted into a 39-year-old brain-dead man on May 15 at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, the team reported in the journal Nature Medicine.
The organ functioned and showed no signs of rejection, infection, or graft failure for the first three days, and survived for nine days overall before the study was stopped at the request of the patient’s family.
The pig lung had genes removed to reduce the risk of rejection by the human
The donor pig had three genes removed to reduce the risk of triggering an immune response and three human genes added to help protect the organ from rejection. Researchers stated that the procedure follows other recent pig heart xenotransplants of kidneys, liver, and thymus in the United States and China. Additionally, US clinical trials for pig livers and kidneys have been approved this year.
“Lungs are the most difficult organ to transplant,” said Muhammad Mohiuddin, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who led the first pig-to-human heart transplant into a living person in 2022.
He praised the Chinese effort as “a first step” toward lung xenotransplantation but cautioned that lungs’ dense blood-vessel networks make them especially prone to immune attack that can cause clots and tissue damage.
The lung began to swell 24 hours after surgery
The Guangzhou team reported that 24 hours after surgery, the lung began to swell and showed tissue damage linked to a period without oxygen during the transplant procedure. They observed antibody-mediated damage on days three and six, but said the injury had diminished by day nine.
Wayne Hawthorne, a transplant surgeon at the University of Sydney, stated that the next step should be small clinical trials of lung xenotransplantation. Such transplants could provide an option for patients with end-stage lung disease who otherwise face long waits for human donor organs.
Chinese scientists published the results of xentransplanting a genetically modified pig lung into a brain dead human.
This is an important scientific milestone but an underwhelming result: despite massive immunosuppresion primary graft dysfunction & early rejection occurred.
1/ pic.twitter.com/6mBCJzjNsW— Nick Mark MD (@nickmmark) August 25, 2025
Researchers acknowledged that improvements in organ preservation and additional genetic modifications, such as adding protective genes to reduce clotting and immune attack, could lower the risk of injury and improve medical outcomes. Mohiuddin suggested that circulating a preservation solution through the organ blood vessels after removal might reduce damage.
Scientists say the broader goal of xenotransplantation is to address the thousands of deaths every year among patients who die waiting for donor organs. The lung operation provides what investigators describe as proof of concept that genetically edited pig lungs can function in a human body long enough to inform future work.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
