What makes this new study different is the duration and depth of analysis. The liver was fully vascularized and remained active for 10 days. Pathogen screening confirmed that dangerous viruses like porcine cytomegalovirus (PCMV) and porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) were absent.

The transplant came after about a decade of earlier studies and transplants by Wang and his team of gene-edited organs from pigs into monkeys, including a pig heart, kidney, cornea, and bone. The group also performed a skin transplant using gene-edit pig skin into a person with severe burns.

Chinese researchers are reporting new steps in the quest for animal-to-human organ transplants. Researchers at Xijing Hospital in China say a pig kidney transplant recipient continues to recover nearly three weeks after that surgery.