On harvesting from pig-human hybrids

There’s an enduring fascination with xenotransplantation. After all, there’s a growing shortage of organs available for transplant, and some 20 patients die while on organ waitlists every day. CRISPRed pigs are seen as a possible way to develop a sustainable organ transplant market.

This is the subject of a new review in Science, which argues xenotransplantation could indeed be reality in the near future — so long as scientists can figure out how to stave off abject human rejection.  The key, most likely, is a combination of modifying patients' immune systems so they can tolerate porcine innards — as well as, of course, making swine-grown organs as human as possible. 

And who are these CRISPRed pigs, anyway? MIT Tech Review visits the Bavarian farm where they are raised. The digs are the opposite of filthy: The animals are conceived in petri dishes and delivered via C-section, and housed in sterile conditions — all to try and eventually conform to the rigorous transplantation standards of the FDA.