Could a Gene-Editing Tweak Make Pigs Organ Donors for Ailing Humans?

March 17, 2016

(Los Angeles Times) – Despite their slovenly habits in agricultural settings, pigs raised in biomedical labs are clean enough that many humans would welcome —indeed, do welcome — the use of their tissue for life-saving transplants. Transplanted heart valves routinely come from pigs as well as cows. But the dream of transplanting whole pig organs into humans who need new hearts, livers, kidneys or lungs — xenotransplantation — is not so simple a matter.