An Alabama woman is free from dialysis and in better health after surgeons at NYU Langone Health performed a gene-edited pig kidney transplant last month. The procedure marks the latest promising breakthrough in an emerging surgical practice posited as the solution to the organ supply crisis.

Towana Looney, 53, donated a kidney to her mother in 1999 but developed kidney failure several years later after a complication during pregnancy caused damaging high blood pressure. Less than 1% of living donors develop kidney failure, but those who do need a transplant are given higher priority on the waiting list. By December 2016, she needed to start dialysis treatment to remove excess fluid and waste from her blood stream. She was listed for kidney transplantation in early 2017, but it proved nearly impossible to find a suitable match: the unusually high levels of harmful antibodies in her blood made a devastating form of transplant rejection likely. She remained on the transplant waiting list for nearly eight years while slowly losing accessible blood vessels to support dialysis.

Given her worsening medical conditions from prolonged dialysis and the improbability of finding a successful match after years of searching, Looney was authorized to receive a pig kidney with 10 gene edits under the Food and Drug Administration’s expanded access program, otherwise known as compassionate use. The program allows investigational medical products to be used outside of clinical trials when a patient has a life-threatening condition.

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Xenotransplantation remains a new frontier in surgery, with challenges to overcome. However, Looney is the healthiest she’s been in eight years. “It’s a blessing,” said Looney. “I feel like I’ve been given another chance at life. I cannot wait to be able to travel again and spend more quality time with my family and grandchildren.”

Looney’s procedure marks the third time that a kidney from a gene-edited pig has been transplanted into a living human. She is the first to receive a kidney from a pig with 10 gene edits and is currently the only person in the world living with a pig organ.

“We must at all costs protect our heroes who themselves have given the gift of life to someone else,” said Robert Montgomery, MD, DPhil, who led the procedure and who is the H. Leon Pachter, MD, Professor of Surgery; chair of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine Department of Surgery; and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. “Towana represents the culmination of progress we have made in xenotransplantation since we performed the first surgery in 2021. She serves as a beacon of hope to those struggling with kidney failure. All the physicians, researchers, nurses, administrators, and perioperative care teams at NYU Langone Health involved in making this moment possible are so thrilled for her, and I couldn’t be more proud of what they have done to improve Towana’s life through this incredible scientific achievement.”

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At home in Alabama, Looney was originally under the care of Jayme Locke, MD, MPH, a transplant surgeon who led innovations in xenotransplantation while at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Locke initiated Looney’s FDA expanded access application to receive a kidney from a pig with 10 gene edits. At UAB, Dr. Locke conducted several studies to verify the organ performed the same life-sustaining functions as a human kidney, and as a result, was able to provide critical data to the FDA for approval of the emergency application.

Dr. Locke partnered with Dr. Montgomery, her long-time mentor, to help make a xenotransplant possible for Looney. Additionally, Dr. Locke was recently appointed to a new transplant leadership position as director of the Division of Transplantation at the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

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Nearly 104,000 people are on the waiting list for a transplant, with over 90,400 of those waiting for a kidney. According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, more than 1 in 7 adults—about 35.5 million people—have chronic kidney disease in the United States. Of those, the National Institutes of Health estimates nearly 808,000 have end-stage kidney disease, but only about 27,000 received kidney transplants in 2023.