Part man, part pig: how animal organs could save human lives

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• 00:03

  The Economist So do you want to just tell me how you came to be the recipient of a pig kidney?

• 00:18

  That's Tim Andrews, a pensioner from New Hampshire in America.

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  He was talking about his kidney failure on the phone with Emily Steinmark,

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  the Economist's science correspondent.

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  ever get on the list high enough to get a transplant.

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  So most likely I was gonna pass away before I got to the point where I would be able to get a transplant.

• 00:48

  Tim had heard about a patient who'd also had kidney failure, but he was no ordinary patient.

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  The procedure that doctors had tried out on him at Massachusetts General Hospital had made headlines In an historic first,

• 01:06

  a kidney from a genetically modified pig has been successfully transplanted into a human.

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  Tim would end up becoming one of the first people in the world to receive a transplant of a pig's kidney.

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  For him it meant he could stop the disruptive and frankly exhausting dialysis treatment that he would normally have to undergo.

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  For medical scientists though,

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  Tim's treatment raised hopes that pigs could eventually become a promising new source of organs for people.

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  There are many more people in the world who need transplants than there are donor organs available.

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  Only 10% of the people around the world who need them actually end up receiving transplants.

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  Could organs from animals fill that devastating gap?

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  I'm Alok Char and this is Babbage from The Economist.

• 02:29

  Today, transplanting organs from animals into people.

• 02:40

  Emily Steinmark is the economist science correspondent who is speaking to Tim and she's been following this story very closely.

• 02:47

  Emily, thanks for joining me.

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