Surgeons with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine reached an institutional milestone in February, surpassing 16,000 total organ transplants performed since its first almost 54 years ago.

On September 30, 2021, a University of Alabama at Birmingham medical team transplanted two pig kidneys into a brain-dead human recipient, a major step toward future pig-kidney transplants to people with kidney failure.

“A kidney transplant…is extraordinarily powerful,” said Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, director of the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute (CTI), in a recent episode of ‘The Checkup’ podcast. “So is a liver, a heart, a lung—they all change people's lives. They all give life back.”

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine announces today the first peer-reviewed research outlining the successful transplant of genetically modified, clinical-grade pig kidneys into a brain-dead human individual, replacing the recipient’s native kidneys. These positive results demonstrate how xenotransplantation could address the worldwide organ shortage crisis.

Four years ago, 28-year-old Ana Kenney was told that she would either spend the rest of her life on dialysis or have to wait up to 10 years for a kidney transplant.

UAB Medicine patient Kevin Russell received a kidney transplant in 1991 at the age of 27. This life-giving operation helped him live almost two more decades, to the age of 45, leading his family to make a legacy gift to the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute in 2020.