Today, while cruising my Facebook feed, I encountered a truly incredible story. Science ran with the provocative title “In a first, pig lung survives and functions—briefly—in a person.” This covered the most recent study from Nature Medicine by the surgeon Jianxing He and his colleagues. The patient, was 39 year old male who had suffered an intracranial hemorrhage which had resulted in brain death.

In short, a genetically engineered pig lung, designed to survive in humans, was transplanted into this brain-dead patient. Instead of dying in hours these genetic modifications allowed the patient to stay alive with functioning lungs for 9 days. The patient was seen to be delivering oxygen and clearing CO₂. Eventually, after a problematic immune response, the lungs were removed for further study. The man was ultimately taken off life support in accordance with his families wishes.