“Never,” Locke responded.

Nearly three weeks after the kidney surgery the Chinese patient “is very well” and the pig kidney likewise is functioning very well, Dr. Lin Wang of Xijing Hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an told reporters in a briefing this week.Wang, part of the hospital’s xenotransplant team, said the kidney recipient remains in the hospital for testing. Chinese media have reported she is a 69-year-old woman diagnosed with kidney failure eight years ago.

But Wang pointed to a potential next step in xenotransplantation — learning to transplant pig livers. His team reported Wednesday in the journal Nature that a pig liver transplanted into a brain-dead person survived for 10 days, with no early signs of rejection. He said the pig liver produced bile and albumin — important for basic organ function — although not as much as human livers do.The liver is a complex challenge because of its varied jobs, including removing waste, breaking down nutrients and medicines, fighting infection, storing iron and regulating blood clotting.“We do find that it could function a little bit in a human being,” Wang said. He speculated that would be enough to help support a failing human liver.

In the U.S. last year, surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania attempted that sort of “bridge” supportto a brain-dead human body to filter blood, much like dialysis for failing kidneys. U.S. pig developer eGenesis is studying that approach.

In China, Wang’s team didn’t remove the deceased person’s own liver, instead implanting the pig liver near it.

That “clouds the picture,” said Dr. Parsia Vagefi, a liver transplant surgeon at UT Southwestern Medical Center who wasn’t involved with the work. “It’s hopefully a first step but it’s still, a lot like any good research, more questions than answers.”Nurse Shinda Cover-Bowen works for the initiative’s Nurse Family Partnership, which has her visiting some families for 2 1/2 years, well beyond the pregnancy and birth. She said “that consistency of someone being there for you and listening to you and guiding you on your mother’s journey is priceless.”

Being grounded in the local community — and its history — is also crucial for Healthy Start projects. The lingering effects of racism are evident in Tulsa, where in 1921, white residents are estimated to have killed 100-300 Black people and, churches, schools and businesses in the Greenwood section. That’s where Jackson lives now, and where health disparities persist.

A mural memorializing a once-thriving “Black Wall Street” is displayed in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)A mural memorializing a once-thriving “Black Wall Street” is displayed in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)