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NIH researchers and their collaborators report record-setting survival data for five transplanted pig hearts, one of which remained healthy in a baboon for nearly 3 years. The results—in baboons that kept their original hearts and were regularly given hefty doses of immune-suppressing drugs—aren’t enough to justify testing pig organs in humans yet.  

[...] [The researchers] used the anti-CD40 antibody, along with the blood-thinning drug heparin, to prevent clotting in five baboons transplanted with hearts from genetically engineered pigs. These pigs lacked the galgene, and also expressed genes for two human proteins: one that helps regulate blood clotting, and another that blocks the signaling molecules that prompt an antibody response leading to damaging clots.