Story comes from BBC, “Pigs offer new stem cell source”, and is based on research done by a Chinese team at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, led by Dr Lei Xiao, and published at the Journal of Molecular Biology (and to show you I am better than the BBC, I actually provide a link to the research paper online, and a citation at the bottom of this post [1]. Ha!).

Chinese scientists have given cells from adult pigs the ability to turn into any tissue in the body, just like embryonic stem cells
[...]
Dr Xiao’s team reprogrammed cells taken from a pig’s ear and bone marrow, using a cocktail of chemicals introduced into the cells via a virus.

Tests showed that the reprogrammed cells were capable of becoming any of the cell types that make up the three layers in a developing embryo.

So it seems possible that a few years down the road (or decades mind you, we’ve heard of such breakthroughs before but the complications are usually significant) humans will be able to receive animal transplants with less chances of rejection:

Dr Xiao said pigs were a potentially ideal source of organs for transplant, as their organs were similar in function and size to those found in humans.

He said reprogrammed stem cells could potentially be used to make a pig organ compatible to the human immune system, minimising the risk of rejection.

But all is not rosy though (as should be expected of course):

Creating pig stem cells does not necessarily remove the risk of organ rejection but even more worrying is the risk of infecting patients and the wider public with pig viruses

Damn… just as the poor pigs were trying to build up their brand name again after that swine flu disaster!

Regardless, this remains an extremely interesting piece of research and it’s worth foloowing closely (which, due to time constraints, really translates to: “have an eye open for other related press releases…”).

---
References:

1. Wu Z, Chen J, Ren J, Bao L, Liao J, Cui C, Rao L, Li H, Gu Y, Dai H, Zhu H, Teng X, Cheng L, Xiao L., "Generation of Pig-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells with a Drug-Inducible System", Journal of Molecular Biology, Jun 2009, [↩]