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Approximately 120,000 people in the U.S. alone are waiting for an organ transplant, and there are many more who could benefit from one but haven\\u2019t made the list because there simply aren\\u2019t enough organs available. But what if the supply could be increased by utilizing the organs of another species? The process is called xenotransplantation, and its what Dr. Joseph Tector and his team have been working on for years now.

As the director of the University of Alabama Xenotransplant Program, Dr. Tector explains the main roadblock to xenotransplantation: rejection by the receiver\\u2019s antibodies. However, he and his team have genetically modified pig organs in a way that\\u2014in conjunction with immunosuppressant drugs\\u2014will decrease or eliminate the human antibody response, thereby preventing rejection. Ten people on the waitlist have already been tested and shown to have no detectable antibodies to the pig cells, making them candidates for transplant.

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