Richard "Rick" Slayman, the first person to receive a pig kidney transplant, has died at the age of 62
Richard "Rick" Slayman, the first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig, has died nearly two months after the transplant. He was 62 years old.
The historic procedure was performed March 16 at Massachusetts General Hospital. In a statement released May 11, the hospital said it had "no indication" that Slayman's death was the result of a pig kidney transplant.
Slayman had already received a kidney transplant from a human donor in 2018, but it began to fail in 2023. He was a candidate for another human kidney transplant, but due to a shortage of available organs, he would likely have to wait several years. Kidneys are the most in-demand of all donor organs, with about 90,000 people waiting for them in the U.S. alone. For decades, researchers have been interested in the idea of using animal organs to solve this problem.
Doctors offered Slayman a pig kidney transplant after months of complications related to dialysis. In dialysis, a machine connects to a large blood vessel to remove waste and excess fluid when the kidneys stop functioning. But Slayman's blood vessels continued to clot and fail, causing him to be hospitalized regularly and significantly reducing his quality of life.
Until then, pig kidney transplants had only been performed on recently deceased humans. Slayman became the first living person to receive such a transplant. "I saw this not only as a way to help myself, but also as a way to give hope to the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive", Slayman said in a hospital statement in March.
At a March 21 press conference, Slayman's surgical team reported that the kidney began working normally shortly after it was placed. However, about a week after the transplant, doctors noticed the first signs of rejection. They were able to treat Slayman quickly with drugs to counteract this, and afterward, his health improved enough that he was discharged from the hospital. Further details about Slayman's condition after discharge are not known. A Massachusetts General Hospital spokesperson told WIRED that the hospital could not provide any other information at this time.
A second living person, 54-year-old Lisa Pisano, received a genetically modified pig kidney last month. The surgery, which also involved transplanting a pig's thymus gland, was performed at NYU Langone Health.
The transplantation of organs from one species to another is known as xenotransplantation. The main obstacle to the use of pig organs in humans is the human immune system, which recognizes animal tissue as foreign and rejects it.
To solve the incompatibility problem, scientists turned to genetic engineering. In Slayman's case, surgeons used a pig with 69 genetic edits created by the biotechnology company eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts. They removed harmful pig genes and added some human genes.
In the New York case, Pisano received a kidney from a pig with a single genetic edit produced by Revivicor in Virginia. Her doctors rely on implanting the pig's thymus, an organ that is part of the immune system, to prevent rejection. Pig transplant patients will also have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to reduce the risk of rejection.
In 2022 and 2023, surgeons at the University of Maryland tried transplanting the hearts of gene-edited pigs into two patients who were not matched with human hearts. In these cases, pigs with 10 genetic edits were used. Both patients died about two months after the transplants.
In a statement released by Mass General, Slayman's family said they are comforted by the optimism he instilled in other patients awaiting transplants. "His legacy will inspire patients, researchers and medical professionals around the world", they said.