February 28, 2025
(Knowable Magazine) – Can genetically modified animals help ease the shortage of organs? After years of research into xenotransplantation, the field is at a turning point — yet risks and ethical issues remain. Over the past few years, a handful … Read More
February 27, 2025
(New York Times) – The sickest patients are supposed to get priority for lifesaving transplants. But more and more, they are being skipped over. For decades, fairness has been the guiding principle of the American organ transplant system. Its bedrock, … Read More
February 25, 2025
(Gizmodo) – Health officials in Wisconsin and Minnesota have documented a rare case of donor-derived ehrlichiosis. A person’s precious organ donation came with an unexpected visitor. In a new paper out this month, scientists have documented an unconventional way of … Read More
February 17, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – If you need a prescription filled in the coming years, don’t be surprised if it flies in and lands in your backyard. Hospitals and doctors are increasingly experimenting with the use of drones to deliver medications, … Read More
February 12, 2025
(Cincinnati Enquirer) – An Indiana family says Cincinnati Children’s won’t put their 12-year-old daughter on its heart transplant waiting list because of her vaccination status. Janeen Deal, who is related by marriage to Vice President JD Vance’s half-siblings, said the hospital requires her daughter … Read More
February 10, 2025
(Associated Press) – A New Hampshire man fought for the chance at a pig kidney transplant, spending months getting into good enough shape to be part of a small pilot study of a highly experimental treatment. His effort paid off: … Read More
February 7, 2025
(New York Times) – Surgeons in Boston successfully transplanted the kidney of a genetically modified pig into a 66-year-old man with kidney failure last month, Massachusetts General Hospital announced on Friday. It was the fourth pig kidney transplant in the … Read More
February 3, 2025
(New York Times) – The research offers hope to tens of thousands of patients with kidney failure who are on a long waiting list for an organ transplant. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to … Read More
January 30, 2025
(NPR) – Towana Looney is waiting to check in with her doctors at NYU Health Langone when it registers that she’s passing a major milestone in her recovery from a kidney transplant. In late November she became the first person … Read More
January 27, 2025
(Associated Press) – An Alabama woman passed a major milestone Saturday to become the longest living recipient of a pig organ transplant – healthy and full of energy with her new kidney for 61 days and counting. “I’m superwoman,” Towana … Read More
January 17, 2025
Hastings Center Report (vol. 54, Issue 6, 2024) is available online by subscription only.
December 27, 2024
(ABC) – From a pig kidney transplant to restoring genetic deafness, 2024 was a year full of medical breakthroughs. The breakthroughs include the discovery of a cause of an autoimmune disease, the development of a “game-changing” drug and potential hope … Read More
December 23, 2024
(The Columbia Dispatch) – On Dec. 13, Samantha Fledderjohann donated one of her kidneys to a stranger in need, and in the process, transformed 10 lives. The 46-year-old was the first of a record-breaking “chain” of 20 surgeries over a … Read More
December 17, 2024
(Associated Press) – An Alabama woman is recovering well after a pig kidney transplant last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs. Towana Looney is the fifth American … Read More
November 27, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A nonprofit that collects donated organs and transports them to transplant patients around the U.S. used its airplanes for other purposes, including travel for employees and for fundraisers. Indiana Donor Network operates a fleet of small … Read More
November 26, 2024
(ABC News) – People with HIV who need a kidney or liver transplant will be able to receive an organ from a donor with HIV under a new rule announced Tuesday by U.S. health officials. Previously, such transplants could be … Read More
November 22, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Around 135 transplants have been performed, but it’s probably too soon to offer the procedure to trans women. A decade on, over 135 uterus transplants have been performed globally, resulting in the births of over 50 … Read More
November 20, 2024
(KFF Health News) – Checking the “donor” box on a driver’s license application, people may picture their heart, kidneys, or other organs saving another person’s life should the worst happen. They are less likely to consider that tissues — corneas, … Read More
November 14, 2024
(Gizmodo) – Doctors say that Richard Slayman’s body did not reject a pig kidney modified to become more compatible with human biology. A historic medical accomplishment that ended in tragedy may yet have a silver lining. Doctors say that Richard … Read More
November 13, 2024
(Wired) – San Francisco–based Ossium Health has carried out three transplants for cancer patients using stem cells from deceased donors’ bone marrow in recent months. A donor must have closely matched genes for human leukocyte antigens, or HLA, to be … Read More
November 6, 2024
Journal of Medical Ethics (vol. 50, no. 11, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
November 1, 2024
The New England Journal of Medicine (vol. 391, no. 15, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
October 30, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Tissue-engineering techniques are in the works to regrow heart muscle after a heart attack and repair lungs and other organs It is hard to mend a broken heart, but in a few years doctors might be … Read More
October 28, 2024
(Associated Press) – Transplant experts are seeing a spike in people revoking organ donor registrations, their confidence shaken by reports that organs were nearly retrieved from a Kentucky man mistakenly declared dead. It happened in 2021 and while details are … Read More
October 17, 2024
(NPR) – Martin was not assigned to the operating room that day, but she says she thought she might get drafted. So she started to review case notes from earlier in the day. She became alarmed when she read that … Read More
