You cannot transplant an animal's organ into a human
The core idea stands, but key numbers or details have changed.
TaughtTransplants have to come from human donors. An organ from another species would be rejected by the immune system within minutes, so cross-species transplants are impossible.
NowOn 16 March 2024, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital transplanted a gene-edited pig kidney into a living patient, the first time an animal organ was placed in a living human. Earlier gene-edited pig hearts and kidneys had been tried in brain-dead recipients and, in 2022, in one living heart patient.
What actually happened
The old barrier was real. Pig cells carry sugars and proteins that the human immune system attacks instantly, causing hyperacute rejection that destroys a transplanted organ almost on contact. That is why xenotransplantation was, for a century, a graveyard of attempts.
CRISPR changed the arithmetic. The donor pigs are gene-edited, with harmful pig genes removed, human compatibility genes added, and pig retroviruses inactivated, so the organ no longer trips the immediate rejection response. The 2024 kidney functioned in a living person, something the textbooks called impossible.
This is a first, not a solution. The patient, Richard Slayman, died about two months later, xenotransplantation remains experimental, and long-term rejection is unsolved. But "impossible" is the wrong word now. The honest word is "early."
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Who was taught this
Still standard through 2024, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 2024 learned the earlier version.