We have a lot in common, starting with a similar genetic code that makes increasingly advanced attempts at xenotransplantation possible. In 2022, a pig’s heart was first transplanted into a terminally ill man, with which David Bennett, a handyman from the state of Maryland, survived for two months. A year later, a pig heart beat in the chest of a navy veteran named Lawrence Faucette for two months. In 2024, in Massachusetts, Richard Slayman survived seven weeks with a transplanted pig kidney. Shortly after the transplant, when the kidney first began to function, Dr Tatsuo Kawai, who performed the operation, said: “it was the most beautiful kidney I have ever seen”. Many medical research centres around the world simulate the reactions of various pig organs in humans. Pig skin and bones are already being used for transplants.