In a world first, scientists have successfully grown humanized, early-stage kidneys in pig embryos, adding to the potential for using animals to grow human organs for transplantation.
Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organs in humans, and there is a long waiting list for receiving a kidney.
However, there are more than 25,000 kidney transplants performed in the U.S. in 2022.
There are also more than 90,000 people who will need a kidney by 2020, and nearly 5,000 dying each year before they receive one.
As alternative to human-to-human donation, many people have explored xenotransplantation, the transplant of animal organs into humans.
Since the human immune system is primed to reject organs from another species, this has primarily involved genetically modified pig kidneys.
But a new study aimed to go a step beyond this by developing embryos with both human and pig cells in them.
Using CRISPR, the scientists genetically engineered
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