Breakthrough in Organ Transplantation
Researchers have achieved a major medical breakthrough by creating human kidney organoids and transplanting them into pigs.
A team from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Spain successfully combined human kidney organoids with pig kidneys and transplanted them back into the same animal, creating the world's first functional human-pig hybrid kidney.
This pioneering technology could be a significant step toward repairing damaged organs before transplantation, using a normothermic perfusion machine to preserve the kidney alive and oxygenated outside the body.
This device allows the kidney to be preserved alive and oxygenated ex vivo (outside the body).Author's summary: Pigs get world's first kidney transplants.