Wilma the pig kept Tim Andrews alive 271 days — SkimNews
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- Tim Andrews, a 66-year-old New Hampshire man with end-stage kidney disease, lived 271 days on a 69-edit Yucatan miniature pig kidney named Wilma — the longest pig-to-human xenograft in a living person.link ›
- After the pig kidney failed at nine months, Andrews received a deceased-donor human transplant that worked through six months of follow-up, with no pig pathogens detected and no sensitization to human tissue.link ›
- Duke University engineers used MAPS hydrogel scaffolds plus astrocyte-derived vesicles to rebuild vasculature and axons in stroke-damaged mouse brains; treated mice matched healthy controls on a grid-walking test by week eight.link ›
- University of Birmingham researchers found CD4+ T-cell DNA methylation changes persist 5–10 years after weight loss, helping explain lingering type 2 diabetes and cancer risk.link ›
- Tobi Matzek at the University of Montreal induced lucid dreams in roughly half of 60 trained adults using ZMax EEG headband red-light flashes, melodies, and forehead vibrations timed to REM.link ›
- Wolfgang Ketterle and MIT colleagues published two Physical Review Letters papers disproving Ben Jones and Joseph Formaggio's 2025 neutrino laser proposal — the key "memory effect" was 10,000 billion times too brief.link ›
- The National Eating Disorders Association's May survey of ~2,700 people found 82% link social media to eating-disorder triggers; DSM-6 has until 2030 to integrate digital environment assessment.link ›
Tim Andrews got a 69-edit Yucatan miniature pig kidney at Mass General Brigham in January 2025 and lived 271 days on it — the longest a pig organ has kept a living human off dialysis. When blood vessel damage forced removal at nine months, surgeons gave him a deceased-donor human kidney that worked through six months of follow-up. No pig viruses appeared and no new antibodies against human tissue formed. That clean handoff is the actual breakthrough: xenotransplantation just became a way to buy time on the waiting list without burning future transplant eligibility.
The stories behind this week
Pig Kidney Bridges to Human Transplant in World FirstFor the first time, a pig kidney kept a living patient stable long enough to reach a human transplant — proof-of-concept that xenotransplantation can function as a clinical bridge for the tens of thousands on organ waiting lists. The clean immunological handoff (no new anti-human antibodies) matters more than the survival record, because sensitization typically disqualifies future transplant candidates.
Longer Exhales Boost Risk-Taking via Brain-Heart LinkThe study identifies a direct physiological pathway—via breathing-induced changes in heart rhythm and neural sensitivity—through which simple, non-invasive techniques can shift risk behavior. This could lower barriers to interventions for conditions like anxiety or depression, where altered reward processing and autonomic dysfunction are central.
UB hydrogel delivers OA drugs in joints for weeksFor osteoarthritis patients who currently need repeated joint injections for short-lived symptom relief, a single weekly-residing drug depot could cut procedure burden while enabling disease-modifying therapy — and the use of materials with prior regulatory acceptance may shorten the path to clinical trials.
Lucid dreams induced via multisensory stimulationAchieving lucid dreams in roughly half of participants after a single brief training session undercuts the assumption that lucidity is rare and hard to cultivate, giving sleep and PTSD researchers a plausible on-demand protocol for clinical applications like nightmare therapy.
Duke injectable scaffold rebuilds stroke-damaged mouse brainsMore than a million people in the U.S. alone suffer ischemic strokes each year, and once brain tissue dies, no current therapy can replace it — clot-busting drugs, mechanical clot removal and rehab can only save or retrain what's still viable. This Duke approach demonstrated actual structural regeneration in mice, including new vasculature and axons, with motor recovery statistically indistinguishable from healthy animals by eight weeks. Even at the preclinical stage, it represents a different therapeutic logic: engineering a local healing niche that coordinates multiple repair systems rather than delivering a single drug.
MIT analyses prove neutrino laser design impossibleFor neutrino physics, the finding narrows the field by retiring the most straightforward route to a neutrino laser while leaving exotic multi-neutrino-emission schemes as the only untested alternative. Ketterle himself frames the episode as physics self-correcting even when it means abandoning a creative idea.
Obesity leaves a lasting memory in immune cellsPeople who lose weight may still face elevated disease risks for up to a decade due to long-lasting immune cell changes, meaning sustained weight management—not just loss—is critical. This reframes obesity recovery as a multi-year biological process, not a short-term outcome.
Opinion: The next DSM should address the algorithm’s role in eating disordersThe DSM-6 has a four-year window to formally integrate digital environment assessments into clinical practice, which could shift how millions of patients are evaluated. Without this update, clinicians may overlook a pervasive trigger that 82% of surveyed individuals with eating disorders already link to symptom onset or relapse.
Why it matters: If the clean pig-to-human handoff replicates, every dialysis patient on the waiting list gains a clinical bridge that preserves their shot at a future human organ — the first real supply-side rethink in transplantation since the donor system itself.
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