Chinese scientists successfully grow humanized kidney inside pig

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Published in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, the study details the creation of human-pig chimeric embryos, consisting of both human and pig cells. These specially engineered embryos were then implanted in surrogate pig mothers and allowed to develop. After 28 days of growth, the resulting kidneys displayed a predominantly human cell composition, maintaining a normal structure. Remarkably, human cells made up approximately 60 to 70% of the total cells within these humanized kidneys.

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Lead researcher Liangxue Lai, affiliated with the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Wuyi University, explained the significance of this achievement: «Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded. Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.»

Pigs, due to their physiological similarities with humans and comparable organ sizes, have long been considered an attractive candidate for growing human organs. Notably, the human kidney is one of the most frequently transplanted solid organs worldwide and one of the earliest to appear during embryonic development. According to the US Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there are currently 88,500 individuals awaiting organ transplants in the United States alone.
Achieving this milestone wasn't without its challenges, as Miguel Esteban, senior study author