WASHINGTON (AP) — The first clinical trial is getting underway to see if transplanting pig kidneys into people might really save lives.
United Therapeutics, a producer of gene-edited pig kidneys, announced Monday that the study’s initial transplant was performed successfully at NYU Langone Health.
It’s the latest step in the quest for animal-to-human transplants. A second U.S. company, eGenesis, is preparing to begin its own pig kidney clinical trial in the coming months. These are the first known clinical trials of what is called xenotransplantation in the world.
To protect the study participant’s identity, researchers aren’t releasing information about when the NYU surgery was performed or further patient information.
NYU's Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the transplant team, told The Associated Press his hospital has a list of other patients interested in joining the small trial, which will initially include six people. If all goes well, it could be expanded to up to 50 as additional transplant centers join.
The Food and Drug Administration is allowing the rigorous studies after a series of so-called “compassionate use” experiments, with mixed results. The first two gene-edited pig kidney transplants were short-lived.
Then doctors began working with patients who badly needed a kidney but weren't as sick as prior recipients. At NYU, an Alabama woman’s pig kidney lasted 130 days before she had to return to dialysis. The latest record, 271 days, was set by a New Hampshire man transplanted at Massachusetts General Hospital; he also is back on dialysis after the pig organ began declining and was removed last month. Others known to be living with a pig kidney are another Mass General patient and a woman in China.
“This thing is moving in the right direction" as doctors learn from each patient's experience, NYU's Montgomery said. He noted the ability to resume dialysis also gives a safety net.
More than 100,000 people, most needing kidneys, are on the U.S. transplant list, and thousands die waiting. As a potential alternative, scientists are genetically altering pigs so their organs are more humanlike, less likely to be immediately attacked and destroyed by people’s immune system.
United Therapeutics' trial is testing pig kidneys with 10 gene edits, “knocking out” pig genes that trigger early rejection and excessive organ grown and adding some human genes to improve compatibility.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Surgeons at NYU Langone Health prepare to transplant a pig's kidney into a brain-dead man in New York on July 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum, File)
BRUSSELS (AP) — More than 60 nations are sending representatives to Brussels to discuss with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustafa stability, security and long-term peace in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, as global attention largely remains focused in the Middle East on the ongoing crises in Iran and Lebanon.
Ongoing attacks in the West Bank and continued devastation in Gaza dims the prospect for a two-state solution, said Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot ahead of the meeting Monday. He is co-hosting the meeting with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.
“We observe without naivety that the two-state solution is being made more difficult by the day," Prévot said. “But Belgium and many European and Arab partners continue to believe that this remains the only realistic path to a lasting peace, for Israelis, for Palestinians and for the stability of the entire region.”
The 27-nation European Union is the largest single donor to the Palestinian Authority, with its 90-year-old president Mahmoud Abbas ruling from Ramallah for two decades. And while the EU has avoided directly joining the Board of Peace created by United States President Donald Trump, preferring the multilateralism of the United Nations and global legal norms, the bloc is eager to not be sidelined in diplomacy in a volatile region just across the Mediterranean.
Outrage in Europe over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza drove many EU leaders to condemn Israel’s war conduct and to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With the recent ouster of long-serving Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Netanyahu, there might now be enough political support within the bloc for stronger actions like targeted sanctions on Israeli settlers or even the suspension of some ties to Israel.
Palestinians in the West Bank say that Israel has used the cover of the Iran war to tighten its grip over the territory, as settler attacks surge and the military imposes additional wartime restrictions on movement, citing security.
Gaza requires “one state, one government, one law and one goal," Mustafa said on Monday in Brussels.
“Our common objective of achieving one security structure under the legitimate authority should guide the effective coordination between the International Stabilization Force, the Palestinian Authority, security institutions and other international actors. Security must not be fragmented," he said.
He also called for “the gradual and responsible collection of arms from all armed groups and also the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, center, listens as Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, right, speaks during a meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in Brussels, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, left, listens as Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa speaks during a meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in Brussels, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
From left, Belgium's Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide during a meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution in Brussels, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
