On September 14, 2004, doctors removed a kidney from Purnell’s abdomen and placed it in his brother. For King, the transplant proved life-altering.

At 9 a.m., Dr. Alban Longchamp and Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, transplant surgeons at Mass General, opened the pig’s abdomen and prepared the animal for the surgery. At 10:30, they sewed the kidney in.

John Pollard has been living with a transplanted kidney since June 2019. His old kidney, worn out by high blood pressure, was working at 10%, and he was on dialysis. What was different about Pollar… ...

But that’s not the case at all. Transplant centers now allow for a kidney donor chain, which is a series of transplants where multiple donors and recipients participate.

Harmon also has lived with kidney disease for nearly a decade and was put on the kidney transplant waiting list in 2019. Of the more than 90,000 Americans waiting for a kidney, only 28,144 ...