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Comment by cardy31 | Hacker News Reader

There is a lot of research going into making kidneys without the markers that cause rejection. They hope to make pig kidneys compatible with human transplantation this way.

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They have one in a brain dead patient right now, been over a month with no issues.

https://nyulangone.org/news/pig-kidney-xenotransplantation-p...

That article is two weeks old. Is there a place where they publish regular updates?

Not sure, much more here:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=%22pi...

Did the patient donate his body to science or something? What’s the legality and ethics of operating on a neurologically dead person?

"This important research, which study leaders say could save many lives in the future, was made possible by the family of a 57-year-old male who elected to donate his body after a brain death declaration and a circumstance in which his organs or tissues were not suitable for transplant."

Ooh, I need to look into this... I assume "donate to science" is an additional opt-in not covered by the regular organ donor designation, but it seems like something where one or more or less inclusive of the other and it'd be cool if we treated them as such.

Like, my organs are kind of crummy, so idk if anyone would benefit from them as a transplant. I just want my body to be useful!

It may not be a simple tick box like the organ donor one on your driver's license application.

It sounds like something you would do through an advanced directive or your will, but I'm not an attorney.

Not sure you can logically own something after you’re dead. Even the cells that comprised you. They came from elsewhere (primarily the grocery store) and were fleetingly you until they weren’t.

Do you know how far away stuff like this is from commercial application?

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