Every Living Creature: How Xenotransplantation Will Change Our Lives

by Joshua D. Mezrich

The incredible history and promise of inter-species organ transplantation, from an award-winning transplant surgeon.

With more than 100,000 patients in the United States waiting for life-saving organ transplants, the shortage of organs will never be solved if someone must die for someone else to be saved. And yet a solution is well within reach: xenotransplantation, or the transplanting of organs between different species—the once unimaginable scientific achievement that Joshua Mezrich explores in Every Living Creature.

The story begins with efforts using chimpanzees and baboons from the 1960s through the 1990s, rife with ethical and practical complications and disappointments. The successful cloning of Dolly the sheep revived xeno-optimism, followed by the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9, which finally opened the door to xenotransplantation in humans, using genetically modified pigs as organ donors.

The protagonists of this story are as incredible as the science it details: a transgender visionary, the highest-paid female CEO in the world, who simply wants her daughter to live; the surgeon saved by a high-risk heart transplant, who swears by the promise of pigs’ organs; the brilliant and brash surgeon-scientist-entrepreneur, who is risking everything to make xenotransplantation a reality. Each plays a part in what is, in the end, the story of a miracle—not the answer to a prayer, as Every Living Creature makes clear, but a miracle we can breed.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Published April 7, 2026

About the author

A graduate of Cornell Medical School, Joshua Mezrich, MD, is an associate professor of surgery in the division of multi-organ transplantation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Reviews

[Corvus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Idc if this is removed. Calling a book celebrating this level of exploitation, genetic manipulation, and abuse of these animals for human gain "Every living creature" as if it's some whimsical fairytale is gross. Tokenizing and girlbossifying trans women in the description is gross. Xenotransplantation is already reported on horribly by ignorant media going off press releases claiming "success" of xenotransplants before the patient rapidly dies. It fails CONSTANTLY despite being reported on as "successful" for a few days that these people live. Other methods are more viable and less cruel in the long run but instead of targeting those, funding and better shifting regulations, we're creating dystopian hybrids of living beings as if they're mere products. Products that don't even serve the intended purpose.

Yes it's more complicated, disability from organ failure can be harrowing, tough decisions are sometimes made with no ethical outcome, but don't go dressing it up like a damned Disney movie. Seeing this title and description made me so sick and angry that I had to write this.

[Renae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great bridge for the xenotransplantation knowledge I acquired working on my literature review for my Masters degree. Learning more about the scientists' journey in the field outside of their published papers was very nice. I will have to add the transplantation book to my TBR as I am awaiting my own kidney transplant. 🤞 perfect book for people that wanna learn something new.