In a major transplant breakthrough in health science, a US medical team has succeeded in attaching a pig’s kidney to a human being. The surgeon who led this procedure described it as a “potential miracle”.

The experiment assumes great significance because of the dire shortage of the organ for transplantation in the world’s growing number of serious diabetes patients. India, in particular, has emerged as the one of the worst affected countries with as many as 77 million people suffering from diabetes, a disease that damages the kidneys.

Diabetes has led to a scramble for kidney replacement thereby encouraging illegal organ harvesting by either tempting the poor to part with the organ or forcibly extracting it. This has created a serious legal and social problem.

The successful kidney transplant was done last month, and involved a genetically modified  donor animal, and a brain dead patient on a ventilator. The patient’s family had agreed for the two-day experiment, for advancement of science.

Talking to the media about the experiment, Robert Montgomery, Director of the Transplant Institute at New York University (NYU) Langone, said: “It did what it's supposed to do, which is remove waste and make urine.” What is vital is that the organ reduces the level of the molecule creatinine which indicates the health of the kidney, which had increased in the patient before the transplant.

The organ was joined to the blood vessels of the patient’s legs to enable observing its function and take biopsy samples

While research done previously had shown that pig’s kidneys are viable for nonhuman primates, this is the first time it has been attempted with a human patient.

What is noteworthy is that the donor pig had undergone a genetic editing procedure to knock out a gene that produces a particular sugar. This was necessary otherwise it would have caused strong immunity responses and rejection of the organ.

In humanṣ, pig heart valves are used widely as are the animal’s skin for grafting. The animal is an ideal donor due to its size, rapid growth and large litters.

Montgomery said the technique would in future provide a "renewable source of organs," much like wind and solar provide sustainable energy.