This Kidney Was Frozen for 10 Days. Could Surgeons Transplant It? - The New York Times

Scientists developed a way to freeze a large mammal’s kidney, which could ease organ shortages in the future. First, they had to see if their method would work in a pig. By Gina Kolata On the last day of March, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital began an operation that they hoped might lead to a permanent change in how kidneys are transplanted in people. That morning’s patient was not a person. It was a pig, lying anesthetized on a table. The pig was missing one kidney and needed an implant. While kidneys typically must be transplanted within 24 to 36 hours, the kidney going into the pig had been removed 10 days before, frozen and then thawed early that morning. Never before had anyone transplanted a frozen organ into a large animal. There was so much that could go wrong. “I think there is about a 50 percent chance that it will work,” Korkut Uygun, a professor of surgery and a leader of the team, said before the surgery. Dr. Uygun is on the scientific advisory board of Sylvatic

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