Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation – and there’s no rolling around in the mud here. The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains – behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down your vehicle, swapping your clothes for medical scrubs and stepping into tubs of disinfectant to clean your boots between each air-conditioned barn.
Meet some of the world’s cleanest pigs, raised to grow kidneys and hearts for humans
July 23, 2024