The first man to receive a genetically modified kidney transplant from a pig has been discharged from hospital.

The 62-year-old, Richard “Rick” Slayman of Weymouth – Massachusetts, was sent home on Wednesday, two weeks after the ground-breaking surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

Organ transplants from genetically modified pigs have failed in the past, but the success of this procedure so far has been hailed by scientists as a historic milestone in the field of transplantation.