Behind the Breakthroughs Mike Curtis: Pig Organs as a Bridge to Human Transplants
Mar 25, 2026
Mike Curtis, President and CEO of eGenesis and leader in translating genome-edited pig organs to clinical care, discusses xenotransplantation breakthroughs. He covers CRISPR-enabled genome edits, safety screening and regulatory collaboration. He explains using pig organs as temporary bridges to human transplants, manufacturing and donor design, and which organs come next.
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CRISPR Made Complex Pig Edits Practical
- CRISPR unlocked large-scale edits needed for xenotransplantation, notably inactivating porcine endogenous retroviruses.
- Before CRISPR, inserting one or a few genes was possible but editing dozens of retrovirus copies across the pig genome was infeasible.
Animal Production Lowers Genome Editing Risk
- Producing edited pigs provides a safety advantage over in vivo cell edits because cloned animals allow clonal selection and genome sequencing before clinical use.
- eGenesis screens thousands of clones and selects healthy genomes with acceptable off-target profiles prior to creating animals.
Primate Data Built Confidence For Clinic
- Non-human primate data provided the threshold to move to humans, with eGenesis publishing kidney transplants reaching one to two years in NHPs.
- The Nature 2023 dataset included 25 transplants, several past one year and one over two years, informing donor genetics selection.