• In the U.S., over 100,000 people are on organ transplant waiting lists, and nearly 20 die each day awaiting a transplant.
• In late 2022, researchers in the United Kingdom transfused lab-grown red blood cells into human volunteers, the world’s first trial of its kind.
• Around the same period in Japan, researchers tested “hemoglobin vesicles”—tiny artificial red cell substitutes—in a few volunteers with the ability to carry oxygen and only mild, transient side effects.
• The cost of lab-grown red blood cells has fallen from over $90,000 per unit a decade ago to under $5,000 per unit, but remains far higher than donated blood.
• The Japanese trial is slated to start by early 2025, infuse 100–400 mL of artificial blood, and aim for a practical product by around 2030.
• In 2022, United Therapeutics bioprinted a human lung scaffold with 4,000 kilometers of capillaries and 200 million alveoli, a major step toward transplantable lungs.
• In 2024, Harvard-led researchers unveiled a bioprinting method to create dense vascular networks by printing tiny blood vessels in cardiac tissue.
• December 2024 saw the FDA approve Symvess, an acellular lab-grown blood vessel graft by Humacyte, for emergency repair of vascular trauma, containing no living cells and tested in 50+ patients with RMAT designation.
• January 2022 marked the first xenotransplant of a genetically modified pig heart into 57-year-old David Bennett, who survived about two months with the pig heart beating inside him.
• In early 2025 the FDA allowed United Therapeutics to begin its first clinical trial of transplanted pig kidneys (UKidney) in six patients mid-2025, while eGenesis conducted the first pig-kidney transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital on January 25, 2025.

Organ failure and blood shortages remain critical challenges in medicine. Over 100,000 patients in the U.S. alone are currently on organ transplant waiting lists, and nearly 20 people die each day unable to receive a transplant in time ^[1]. To address this crisis, scientists and biotech innovators are pursuing cutting-edge solutions – from artificial blood cells grown in laboratories, to lab-grown tissues and organoids (miniature organs) engineered from stem cells, to even xenotransplantation (using animal organs for humans). These approaches, once the realm of science fiction, have seen remarkable advances in recent years. This report explores the latest scientific developments in artificial blood, tissues, and organoids; the commercialization and regulatory progress toward lab-grown transplants; breakthroughs in xenotransplantation with genetically modified pigs; expert perspectives and ethical considerations; and what we might expect in the next 5–10 years.

Artificial Blood Cells: Lab-Grown & Synthetic Blood Substitutes

Scientists are getting closer to artificial blood that could supplement or replace human blood for transfusions. Artificial blood comes in two forms: lab-grown blood (cultured human blood cells) and synthetic blood (entirely man-made molecules that carry oxygen) ^[2]. In late 2022, researchers in the UK achieved a milestone by transfusing lab-grown red blood cells into human volunteers – the world’s first trial of its kind ^[3]. This small trial tested the safety and lifespan of laboratory-cultured red blood cells in the bloodstream, marking an initial step toward using lab-grown blood for patients with rare blood types or urgent needs. Another early study in Japan around the same time successfully tested “hemoglobin vesicles” – tiny artificial red cell substitutes – in a few volunteers, finding they could carry oxygen with only mild, transient side effects noted ^[4].

Despite these promising starts, artificial blood products are still in the research phase and not yet available for routine use ^[5]. Producing red blood cells outside the body remains costly and slow. A decade ago, making one unit of lab-grown blood was estimated to cost over $90,000; new methods have since cut this to under $5,000 per unit, but that still vastly exceeds the few hundred dollars for a donated unit of blood ^[6]. Scaling up production to meet clinical demand is a major challenge, as is ensuring lab-made cells function as well as natural ones ^[7]. “This is a novel type of product for any regulator, which means we are in unknown territory,” explained Dr. Cedric Ghevaert, a transfusion medicine professor, referring to the regulatory hurdles in how agencies like the FDA will classify and approve lab-grown blood ^[8]. Regulators are debating whether these cell-based products should be treated as biologic medicines or more like transfusable blood, a determination that will affect the approval pathway ^[9].

Meanwhile, fully synthetic blood substitutes are also under development for emergency use. For example, the U.S. military has invested $46 million in “ErythroMer,” a freeze-dried synthetic blood product that aims to be universal (no blood typing needed) and stable without refrigeration ^[10]. In Japan, researchers at Nara Medical University are preparing a first-in-human clinical trial of artificial red blood cells that can be stored for up to two years at room temperature ^[11][12]. Notably, these artificial cells are designed to be blood-type universal – they contain no blood-type antigens – so they could be given to anyone without matching ^[13]. The Japanese trial, slated to start by early 2025, will infuse 100–400 mL of the artificial blood into healthy volunteers to assess safety ^[14]. If successful, the team hopes to have a practical product by around 2030 ^[15], which could be a world-first in this field.

The medical need driving these efforts is significant. With aging populations and frequent blood shortages, especially in disasters or remote areas, an off-the-shelf blood substitute could save lives. “The need for artificial blood cells is ‘significant’ as there is currently no safe substitute for [human] red cells,” says Professor Hiromi Sakai, one of the Japanese researchers ^[16]. Artificial blood could be deployed in rural “blood deserts” or war zones where stored blood is scarce, and it could provide rare blood types on demand ^[17]. Experts also envision lab-grown blood tailored for rare blood groups that are hard to source from donors ^[18]. Still, it will likely take several more years of trials and engineering improvements before artificial blood is produced commercially at scale ^[19]. Enthusiasm is high that eventually universal artificial blood could revolutionize emergency medicine and transfusion, but practical use is likely latter part of this decade or beyond.

Lab-Grown Tissues and Organs for Transplantation

Researchers are also making strides in tissue engineering – growing or printing human tissues and organs in the lab for transplantation. The vision is to create transplantable skin, cartilage, blood vessels, and even solid organs, either from a patient’s own cells or from stem cells, to alleviate the organ shortage. This field includes advanced techniques like 3D bioprinting, as well as cultivating organoids and tissue scaffolds in bioreactors.

3D Bioprinting Breakthroughs

3D bioprinting uses specialized printers to deposit living cells layer by layer, building up tissues much like a regular 3D printer creates plastic objects ^[20]. The “ink” in bioprinting is actually a bio-ink: a mixture of living cells and biomaterials (such as hydrogels) that provide structural support ^[21]. Using digital blueprints – often derived from MRI or CT scans – bioprinters can fabricate tissue shapes that match a patient’s anatomy ^[22]. Over the past two decades, there have been pioneering successes in printing simple tissues. As far back as 2001, for example, doctors bioprinted a bladder scaffold seeded with a patient’s cells and successfully implanted the lab-grown bladder into a patient ^[23]. More recently, in 2022, a 20-year-old woman in the U.S. received a 3D-printed ear implant made from her own cartilage cells – a world-first achievement by the biotech startup 3DBio Therapeutics ^[24]. And in 2023, surgeons in South Korea performed a groundbreaking windpipe (trachea) transplant using a 3D-printed tracheal graft custom-made to fit the patient ^[25]. The artificial windpipe was created with a biodegradable scaffold (polycaprolactone) and seeded with the patient’s own cells, and remarkably the patient needed no immunosuppressive drugs after the transplant ^[26]. Six months later, the implanted windpipe was healing well and even sprouting new blood vessels, showing that the body was integrating the artificial organ ^[27].

These cases demonstrate the potential of bioprinting for personalized tissue grafts. However, printing a large, complex organ like a heart or kidney that functions long-term in a human is an immensely harder challenge. “We are ‘far away’ from transplanting complex, life-sized 3D-printed organs into humans,” noted biomaterials scientist Didarul Bhuiyan, underscoring a common view that fully printed hearts or lungs are still 20–30 years off ^[28]. Larger organs require intricately organized cell types and internal blood vessel networks that current bioprinting technology cannot yet recreate at human scale ^[29]. That said, progress is accelerating. In 2022, United Therapeutics (also a leader in xenotransplantation) 3D-printed a human lung scaffold complete with 4,000 kilometers of capillaries and 200 million alveoli (air sacs) – a structure that in animal tests could exchange oxygen like a real lung ^[30]. This printed lung “scaffold” is not yet a fully living lung, but it’s a major step toward one; the company aims to develop transplantable bioprinted lungs for human trials within a few years ^[31]. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have likewise bioprinted a small “rabbit-sized” heart containing cells, blood vessel structures, and chambers – it even exhibited a heartbeat in the lab ^[32]. And in 2024, a Harvard-led team unveiled a new bioprinting method to produce dense vascular networks: they printed tiny blood vessels lined with human muscle and endothelial cells, closely mimicking natural blood vessels within a piece of cardiac tissue ^[33]. This advance in printing vasculature was hailed as “significant progress toward being able to manufacture implantable human organs” ^[34], since nourishing an organ with blood supply is one of the toughest hurdles in engineering whole organs.

Commercial investment in 3D bioprinting reflects its promise. The global bioprinting market was valued around $2 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow over 12% annually through 2030 ^[35]. Numerous biotech startups and research spin-offs are focusing on printing tissues for specific medical applications – from cartilage for joint repair to pancreatic tissue for diabetes. As Dr. Paulo Marinho of biotech firm T&R Biofab put it, “While it’s too soon to say that 3D-bioprinting could be the solution for the current shortage of organs, it definitely increases the hopes to partially solve the issue for some organs or specific indications, or at least fill the gap between classic medical devices and organ transplants” ^[36]. In other words, bioprinted constructs might serve as temporary or partial replacements (as in the windpipe case) or support failing organs, even if we can’t print a fully functional new heart just yet. Lower-risk tissues like skin, blood vessels, or cartilage are likely to reach patients first. In fact, 2024 saw the first FDA approval of a lab-grown tissue implant: an engineered blood vessel product called Symvess that can be used as an emergency graft in wounded patients (more on this below) ^[37]. As bioprinting techniques improve, the coming years could bring more “hybrid” approaches where printed tissue patches or organ parts are used to repair or augment human organs.

Organoids and Bioengineered Organ Tissues

Alongside 3D printing, scientists are leveraging stem cells to grow miniature organs in the lab, known as organoids. Organoids are tiny (often millimeter-scale) 3D clusters of cells that self-organize into structures that mimic real organs – for example, mini-brains, mini-livers, or mini-hearts – complete with some of the cell types and microanatomy of the full organ ^[38]. For over a decade, organoids have been invaluable in research: brain organoids help study neurological development, gut organoids model digestive diseases, and so on ^[39]. However, organoids historically faced a limitation: no blood vessels. Without a vascular system to deliver oxygen and nutrients, organoids could only grow to the size of a sesame seed (a few millimeters) before their core would starve and die ^[40]. This size cap meant organoids stayed far from the scale needed for therapeutic use.

In 2025, a major breakthrough cracked that problem – researchers at Stanford University reported the creation of the first vascularized organoids: lab-grown human heart and liver organoids that developed their own tiny blood vessels ^[41]. By optimizing the cocktail of growth factors given to stem cells, the team induced organoids to form not just heart muscle or liver cells, but also endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells that self-assembled into branching blood vessel networks ^[42]. Under the microscope, the resulting heart organoids had realistic micro-vessels running through the cardiac tissue, delivering nutrients throughout the mini-organ ^[43]. This is a game-changer for the organoid field: “The ability to grow vascularized organoids overcomes a major bottleneck in the field,” said Dr. Oscar Abilez, co-lead author of the Stanford study ^[44]. With built-in capillaries, organoids can now grow larger and survive longer. They also reach a more mature, functional state, making them better models for drug testing and disease – and potentially better building blocks for therapy ^[45].

Researchers envision that in the future, patient-derived organoids could be used to repair damaged organs. For instance, rather than waiting for a heart transplant, a patient with heart failure might receive an implant of lab-grown heart tissue made from their own cells. If those tissue grafts are vascularized, they could integrate with the patient’s circulation and continue to live and function. “The thought is that if organoids have a vascular system, they could connect with the host vasculature, and that’ll give them a better chance to survive,” Dr. Abilez explained ^[46]. Already, early steps in this direction are underway. In late 2023, European researchers implanted a patch of lab-grown heart muscle onto the failing heart of a 46-year-old woman as a “bridge to transplant” therapy ^[47]. The patch, grown from stem cells into a sheet of beating cardiac muscle, partially restored the heart’s function over a few months, effectively “remuscularizing” areas that had been damaged by a prior heart attack ^[48]. This helped keep the patient stable until she later received a donor heart transplant ^[49]. A clinical trial in Germany is now ongoing with 15 patients to further test these engineered heart patches for advanced heart failure ^[50]. Such bioengineered tissue is not meant to fully replace a heart transplant yet, but as the cardiac surgeon leading the study noted, it offers “a novel treatment to patients that are presently under palliative care and that have a mortality of 50% within 12 months” – giving them extra time and improved heart function while awaiting a donor organ ^[51]. An outside expert, Dr. Richard Lee of Harvard, lauded the achievement as “really remarkable…a heroic achievement” to bring stem-cell heart patches from lab studies in monkeys into human patients ^[52]. “I think it’s an important step forward,” he told the press, though he cautioned “I don’t want patients to get [over] excited about this” until larger trials prove long-term benefits ^[53].

Beyond the heart, other lab-grown tissues are moving toward real-world use. In December 2024, the U.S. FDA made a landmark decision by approving the first tissue-engineered therapeutic product for wide use: an acellular human blood vessel graft called Symvess ^[54]. This product, developed by Humacyte Inc., is essentially a lab-grown blood vessel scaffold – made by culturing human vascular cells on a biodegradable matrix, then washing the cells away to leave a collagen-rich tube that mimics a natural artery ^[55]. Surgeons can take a Symvess off the shelf and implant it into a patient to replace a damaged artery, and because it contains no living cells (only the human extracellular matrix), the risk of immune rejection is low ^[56]. The FDA approved Symvess specifically for emergency repair of traumatic leg artery injuries when a patient’s own veins aren’t available ^[57]. This is a scenario often faced in military combat injuries or serious accidents. “Today’s approval provides an important additional treatment option for individuals with vascular trauma, produced using advanced tissue engineering technology,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of FDA’s biologics center ^[58]. The product was tested in 50+ patients; it succeeded in restoring blood flow in the majority of cases, offering a limb-saving solution for some who might otherwise face amputation ^[59]. Symvess is also designated a priority product by the U.S. Department of Defense given its potential to treat soldiers’ injuries ^[60]. Its approval – with special FDA designations like RMAT (Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy) to expedite review – signals that regulators are increasingly supportive of regenerative medicine advances reaching patients ^[61]. It also validates the broader field: more bioengineered tissues (skin grafts, cartilage, etc.) may follow suit as they prove their safety and efficacy.

Taken together, these developments in bioprinting and tissue engineering show that lab-grown tissues are steadily transitioning from lab to clinic. We have seen first-in-human successes with relatively simple structures (like windpipes and blood vessels) and even early clinical trials with more complex tissue patches. While printing fully functional organs like kidneys or livers is still on the distant horizon, using lab-grown tissues to repair or augment organs is becoming reality. Scientists are also exploring creative hybrids – for example, using animal organs as “bioreactors” to grow human organs via stem cells (in one 2022 study, human stem cells were injected into pig embryos to see if a human–pig chimera organ could develop) ^[62]. Significant scientific and ethical hurdles remain for such approaches, and results are likely a decade or more away ^[63]. In the meantime, the combination of stem cell biology, gene editing, and biofabrication is opening new avenues to address organ failure without always needing a human donor. “Although we may still be a couple of decades away from seeing the approval of the first 3D bioprinted organ, it is fair to say that it could be a key area in the future of organ transplants,” one analysis concluded ^[64]. Progress in the last few years – including the first approved bioengineered vessel and the first successful bioprinted organ implants – suggests that these futuristic therapies are steadily becoming feasible.

Xenotransplantation: Pig Organs for Humans – Progress and Ethics

One particularly bold strategy to solve the organ shortage is xenotransplantation: transplanting organs from another species, typically pigs, into human patients. Pigs have emerged as the preferred source due to their organ size and physiology being similar to humans, and because modern genetic engineering can modify pig organs to better suit the human body ^[65]. In January 2022, the world witnessed a historic xenotransplant: surgeons implanted a genetically modified pig’s heart into 57-year-old David Bennett, who was dying of heart failure and had no other treatment options ^[66], ^[67]. That experimental surgery, performed under a special FDA compassionate use authorization, was the first time a gene-edited pig heart sustained a human patient – Bennett lived for about two months with the pig heart beating inside him ^[68]. Although he and several other early recipients of pig organs did ultimately pass away (none have survived beyond a few months so far) ^[69], ^[70], these cases provided invaluable data and proved that pig organs can function in a human body at least in the short term.

The reason xenotransplantation is becoming viable now is the advent of advanced gene editing tools (like CRISPR). For decades, attempts to transplant chimpanzee or baboon organs into humans failed disastrously – often due to immediate immune rejection or deadly virus transmission – and such trials were largely halted ^[71]. Pigs, however, are more distant from humans genetically (reducing some cross-species virus risk), and crucially, their genomes can be edited to mitigate rejection issues ^[72], ^[73]. Biotech companies have engineered pigs with dozens of genetic modifications to make their organs more human-compatible. For example, Boston-based startup eGenesis reported pigs with 69 gene edits: removing pig genes that trigger human immune attacks and adding human genes that regulate blood compatibility and other functions ^[74]. These pigs also had a inactivated pig virus gene (PERV) to prevent viral transmission ^[75]. United Therapeutics, through its subsidiary Revivicor, similarly engineered pigs with a suite of ten gene edits, one of which was the source of the pig heart transplanted into Mr. Bennett ^[76].

In the past year, regulatory authorities have begun green-lighting formal clinical trials to test pig organs in humans – a significant step beyond one-off compassionate cases. In early 2025, the FDA gave United Therapeutics permission to launch the first clinical trial of transplanted pig kidneys in patients with end-stage kidney failure ^[77]. The trial, set to begin mid-2025, will transplant United’s edited pig kidneys (dubbed “UKidney”) into an initial group of six volunteer patients to rigorously assess safety and efficacy ^[78]. Another company, eGenesis, received approval in late 2024 to proceed with a small compassionate-use study of its pig kidneys: the first transplant was performed on January 25, 2025 at Massachusetts General Hospital on a 66-year-old man with kidney failure ^[79]. The patient received a pig kidney with the aforementioned 69 gene edits and, notably, the organ functioned well enough that he did not need dialysis afterward – the first time in over two years he could go without dialysis ^[80]. Two more patients are scheduled to receive eGenesis pig kidneys in 2025 as part of this series ^[81]. These trials aim to demonstrate longer-term survival and function of pig organs in humans. If patients can live for many months or even years with a pig kidney, it would be a dramatic leap forward, offering hope to thousands on dialysis. Researchers are also planning for pig heart trials once more data is gathered; in 2022 and 2023, teams in New York and elsewhere tested pig hearts in brain-dead human bodies to study how long they could maintain function (one such heart kept beating for 61 days in a brain-dead recipient, a record) ^[82].

Early results are cautiously encouraging, but the field is frank about the remaining uncertainties. Rejection can occur even with heavy immune suppression and gene edits – the human immune system may still slowly damage the pig organ. There are also ethical questions entwined with xenotransplantation’s progress. Bioethicists point out that these first pig-organ recipients essentially accept very risky, experimental procedures with little chance of long-term survival, which raises issues of informed consent and exploitation of desperately ill patients ^[83]. “At first glance, the pursuit can feel like hubris,” wrote one commentator, noting the moral tension between the tremendous promise of pig organs and the reality that, so far, every patient has died within months ^[84]. There are concerns for the animals as well – producing organs for humans means raising pigs as organ donors, often in highly controlled lab settings. Companies like United Therapeutics have built state-of-the-art pathogen-free pig facilities to breed donor pigs in sterile environments (one such farm opened in Virginia in 2024, designed to raise about 125 pigs per year under biosecure conditions) ^[85], ^[86]. The welfare of these pigs and the ethics of using animals in this way is an active debate. Advocates argue that if a pig’s organ can save a human life, it may be ethically justifiable, especially if the pigs are treated humanely; animal rights groups are more skeptical, urging pursuit of alternatives like synthetic organs.

Despite these debates, many experts in transplantation see xenotransplantation as a necessary and interim solution to the organ shortage. Over 100,000 patients need organs now (in the U.S. alone) ^[87], and even optimistic scenarios for lab-grown organs suggest decades of further research. Pig organs, by contrast, are available today. The key is proving they can work safely. Scientists are optimistic that through incremental improvements – perhaps a combination of better gene edits and novel immune-regulating drugs – the next trials will extend pig organ survival in humans from mere months to a year or more. “Many leaders in the field say this is the year pig organs will demonstrate, convincingly, that they can help alleviate the dire shortage of human organs,” reported a Science magazine feature ^[88]. If the upcoming kidney trials show even moderate success, it could pave the way for larger pivotal trials and eventual FDA approval of certain pig organs for transplant, potentially within the next decade. Regulators will be closely monitoring these experiments; safety protocols (to prevent any cross-species infection) and patient outcomes will dictate the timeline. In the best case, by the late 2020s, xenotransplantation could move from experimental to an approved clinical therapy for kidney or heart failure. In the worst case, unforeseen setbacks (such as immune complications) could delay progress and send researchers back to the lab.

Alongside scientific challenges, xenotransplantation will continue to prompt ethical and societal deliberation. Ongoing dialogues involve questions like how to prioritize patients for pig-organ trials, how to ensure transparent consent, and how to oversee the animal aspects. As ethicist L. Syd Johnson noted, early xenotransplant experiments date back decades (e.g. the famous Baby Fae case in 1984, when a baboon heart was transplanted into an infant), and those were met with controversy ^[89]. Today, with better science, we also have better ethical frameworks, but public acceptance will depend on demonstrating that these transplants truly save or prolong lives. If pig kidneys or hearts can consistently support patients, demand will be enormous – and so will the need to scale up pig organ production in a way that’s ethically and medically sound.

Outlook: The Next 5–10 Years

The coming decade is poised to be a transformative period for regenerative medicine and transplantation. While challenges remain, the steady stream of breakthroughs in the past few years suggests that what once seemed like sci-fi – manufacturing human organs and blood – is inching closer to reality.

In the next five years, we can expect to see more clinical trials and possibly first approvals in several areas:

• Artificial Blood: Ongoing trials like the UK’s lab-grown blood study and Japan’s upcoming artificial blood trial will shed light on safety and durability of lab-made blood cells ^[90], ^[91]. By around 2030, experts hope to overcome cost barriers and begin using lab-grown blood for niche needs – for instance, supplying rare blood types or treating patients with complex transfusion needs ^[92]. Synthetic blood products like ErythroMer might enter advanced trials, particularly for military or emergency use. Regulatory agencies will need to craft new guidelines to approve blood that doesn’t come from human donors, a process already underway ^[93]. If progress continues, within 5–10 years we might see limited commercial use of artificial blood in emergency services or remote areas, though replacing the volunteer blood donation system entirely will likely take much longer (if ever).
• Lab-Grown Tissues: In the near term, relatively simpler lab-grown tissues will reach patients first. We have already seen tissue-engineered skin and cartilage implants in experimental use for burn victims and knee injuries, and these may gain regulatory approvals as more data emerges. The FDA’s approval of the Symvess vessel graft in 2024 ^[94] likely opens the door for other acellular grafts (e.g. tissue-engineered tendons, heart valves, or nerve conduits) to be approved if they show clinical benefit. Over 5–10 years, bioprinting could yield commercial tissue patches for certain applications – for example, bioprinted liver tissue patches to temporarily support a failing liver, or printed bone/cartilage composites for orthopedic surgery. Startups are actively working on these products, and the growing market suggests a pipeline of candidates.
• Organoids & Cell Therapies: Advances in organoids will mostly impact research and drug development in the short term, but they also feed into regenerative therapies. The success of the heart patch trial ^[95] hints that cell-based therapies (implanting lab-grown cells or tissues) could become more common. In 5–10 years, we might see regulatory approval of the first therapies where stem cell-derived tissue is implanted to heal an organ. This could include heart muscle patches for heart attack survivors or pancreatic islet cell clusters for type 1 diabetes. Such treatments would likely be labeled as advanced biologics and go through stringent clinical trials, but the precedent is being set now by trials like the one in Germany. Moreover, as organoids become vascularized and larger ^[96], the line between “organoid for research” and “implantable tissue” will blur. It’s conceivable that in a decade’s time, a patient with liver disease might receive an infusion of liver organoids to restore some liver function – a concept researchers are already testing in animals.
• Xenotransplantation: The next few years are crucial for pig-to-human transplants. If United Therapeutics’ and eGenesis’ kidney transplant trials show positive results (e.g., pig kidneys functioning for many months in patients without complications), it will be a watershed moment. By 5 years from now (2030), we could see a larger Phase II/III trial of pig kidneys and possibly pig hearts. Optimistically, the first conditional approvals for a xenotransplant organ might be possible within ~10 years, likely kidney transplants because kidney failure patients have dialysis as a backup (making trials somewhat safer). On the other hand, any serious setback – such as unexpected immune reactions or viral transmission – could slow progress and underscore the need for further genetic modifications in pigs. Regulatory bodies like the FDA will take a conservative approach, requiring robust evidence of safety and patient benefit. Ethically, there may also be public hearings or guidelines developed on how to deploy pig organs if they do become viable – including how to oversee the breeding of pigs and how to obtain informed consent from patients offered a pig organ. Internationally, other countries (China, for example, has active xenotransplant research) could also play a role in advancing or approving this technology. In summary, by the mid-2030s, xenotransplantation may move from experimental to a lifesaving option for certain organ diseases, dramatically expanding the organ supply – but it will require navigating scientific, regulatory, and ethical complexities in the interim.

Looking further ahead, the convergence of these fields might ultimately solve organ shortages in a sustainable way. It’s possible that bioprinting and stem cells will eventually produce fully implantable human organs, removing reliance on either donors or animals. Current expert consensus is that printing a complex organ or growing one from stem cells to the point of transplantability will take at least another 20 years of R&D ^[97]. However, incremental advances will continue to benefit patients along the way – for example, immunosuppressant-free transplants (already demonstrated in the 3D-printed windpipe case) could become more common as we learn to personalize tissues and organs to each patient ^[98]. Governments and public agencies are increasing support for regenerative medicine: the U.S. and EU have launched initiatives and funding programs to boost biofabrication technologies, and regulatory pathways (like the FDA’s RMAT designation) are in place to speed up approval of promising therapies ^[99]. The involvement of major government bodies also helps in standardizing ethical practices, such as ensuring animal welfare in xenotransplantation or equitable patient access to lab-grown organ therapies once they are available.

In conclusion, the field of artificial blood, organs, and tissues is advancing on multiple fronts. The past 12 months alone have seen world-first achievements – from lab-grown blood in humans ^[100], to 3D-printed body parts saving lives ^[101], to pig kidneys sustaining a human without dialysis ^[102], to patches of heart muscle reviving failing hearts ^[103]. Each breakthrough comes with its own challenges and cautionary lessons, but together they signal a future where needing an organ or blood no longer means hoping for human donors. Instead, patients might receive a bespoke solution: perhaps a vial of manufactured blood, or a regenerated tissue grown from their own cells, or yes – even a pig’s organ genetically tailored for them. Achieving that vision will require continued scientific ingenuity, rigorous clinical testing, careful regulation, and thoughtful ethical oversight. As one expert succinctly put it, “it definitely increases the hopes” that we can “partially solve the issue” of organ shortages in the not-so-distant future ^[104]. With sustained effort over the next decade, what is now experimental could well become routine – delivering lab-grown and animal-grown lifesavers to the patients who need them, and ushering in a new era in transplantation.

Sources: Recent news and expert commentary on artificial blood, tissue engineering, and xenotransplantation, including Al Jazeera ^[105], Labiotech.eu ^[106], BBC Science Focus ^[107], Stanford Medicine News ^[108], FDA Press Release ^[109], Vox ^[110], and Nature/STAT reporting ^[111].

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