In October of 2021, we covered… the first known success here. That patient lived for three days.

The claim out of Boston is that the patient is “continually improving” — he’s now at six days, and may be discharged by next week. I certainly hope so, and to be clear, I applaud any advance here, given my prior experiences in the arena. Access to transplants is an extremely vexing supply problem for people of color, and they are a high burden patient population for kidney disease and ultimately failures.

Here’s the latest — but technically not the… “first” — from the NYT.

…Surgeons in Boston have transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into an ailing 62-year-old Black man, the first procedure of its kind. If successful, the breakthrough offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans whose kidneys have failed. . . .

A new source of kidneys “could solve an intractable problem in the field — the inadequate access of minority patients to kidney transplants,” said Dr. Winfred Williams, associate chief of the nephrology division at Mass General and the patient’s primary kidney doctor….

Now you know — but the graphic at right doesn’t — strictly speaking — relate to the story. Onward, smiling — just the same.

नमस्ते