A surgical team from a hospital in the US state of Massachusetts has transplanted a "genetically edited" pig kidney into a human.

The operation was successfully performed for the second time in less than a year.

The patient is 66-year-old Timothy Andrews from Concord, New Hampshire, who suffered from end-stage kidney failure. His condition had been worsening on dialysis, and it would have taken five to ten years to eventually receive a human kidney.

Andrews was enthusiastic when he learned that he could apply for a "xenotransplant" - a term for receiving an organ from an animal, CBS reports.

In March of last year, the same hospital performed the first-ever pig kidney transplant on a human. The Weymouth patient in question was in much worse health and died about two months later from causes unrelated to his new kidney. | BGNES