Human kidneys have been grown inside pigs in a remarkable experiment.
Human kidneys have been grown inside pigs
It is the first time that scientists have been able to grow a "humanised" organ inside another species and they are now working on growing other organs - including hearts and pancreases - inside hogs.
The long-term aim of the research is to create organs that can be used in human transplants.
The team at Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health decided to focus on kidneys as they are one of the first organs to develop and are also the most commonly transplanted organ.
Professor Lai Liangxue said: "Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded.
"Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs."