US surgeons say they have successfully given a pig’s kidney to a person in a transplant breakthrough they hope could ultimately solve donor organ shortages. The recipient was brain-dead, meaning they were already on artificial life support with no prospect of recovering. The kidney came from a pig that had been genetically modified to stop the organ being recognised by the body as “foreign” and being rejected. The work has not yet been peer-reviewed or published. Experts say it is the most advanced experiment in the field so far. Similar tests have been done in non-human primates, but not people, until now. Using pigs for transplants is not a new idea though. Pig heart valves are already widely used in humans.(BBC)…[+]