An Alabama woman received a pig kidney transplant last month and is free from dialysis for the first time in eight years. Towana Looney is the fifth American given a gene-edited pig organ in a quest to make animal-to-human transplants a reality. Importantly, she wasn’t as sick as prior patients who received pig kidneys or hearts. The others died within two months. Doctors at NYU Langone Health announced Tuesday that Looney was recovering well after the Nov. 25 transplant, a step toward formal studies of pig organs that could begin next year.
