New York: A US man has become the first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig.
The surgery, performed by a team at the University of Maryland Medicine in the United States, is among the first to demonstrate the feasibility of a pig-to-human heart transplant, a field made possible by new gene editing tools.
For David Bennett, a 57-year-old from Maryland, the heart transplant was his last option.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were granted a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the basis that Bennett would otherwise have died.
He had been deemed ineligible for a human transplant, a decision that is often taken by doctors when the patient is in very poor health.