First successful transplant of the heart of a genetically modified pig to a human.
This is David Bennett Sr, 57, a Maryland resident.
The operation, writes the New York Times, lasted eight hours and was performed in Baltimore.
The new organ "creates the beat, creates the pressure, is his heart," said Dr.
Bartley Griffith, director of the medical center's transplant program, author of the intervention.
"It works and looks normal but we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, it's never been done before," he added.
The man in question had a life-threatening heart disease.
The potential breakthrough could someday lead to the provision of animal organs for transplantation into patients.
About 41,354 Americans received an organ transplant last year, a kidney for more than half of them, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that coordinates national efforts to procure organs.
But there is a great shortage, so much so that about a dozen people on the list die every day.
Scientists have been working feverishly to develop pigs whose organs are not rejected by the human body, and research has accelerated over the past decade thanks to new gene editing and cloning technologies.
