To address the progression of immune-related constraints on organ transplantation, the first part of this thesis contains a historical analysis tracing early transplant motivations and the events that led to the discoveries broadly related to tolerance, rejection, and compatibility. Despite the advancement of those concepts over time, this early history shows that immunosuppression was one of the earliest limiting barriers to successful organ transplantation, and remains one of the most significant technical challenges. Then, the second part of this thesis determines the extent at which interspecies blastocyst complementation could satisfy modern technical limitations of organ transplantation.

In 2020, Rebecca Flyckt and colleagues published “First Birth from a Deceased Donor Uterus in the United States: From Severe Graft Rejection to Successful Cesarean Delivery,” hereafter “First Birth from a Deceased Donor,” in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the article, Flyckt and colleagues explain that they performed one of the first uterus transplantations with a uterus from a deceased donor in the United States and detail how they did so successfully. All deceased donors in the study were considered brain-dead, not cardiac-dead. Uterus transplantation from a deceased donor is a surgical procedure in which a researcher transplants a healthy uterus from a brain-dead, deceased donor into a recipient with a diseased or absent uterus. Prior to 2020, researchers performed several uterus transplantations with live donors that resulted in live births, but there was only one recorded live birth from a deceased uterus donor. Flyckt and colleagues provide summary data about uterus transplantations from deceased donors and compare the efficacy of transplantations from live donors to those from deceased donors. “First Birth from a Deceased Donor” advances the techniques that can make uterus transplants from deceased donors successful, which allows people with uterine disorders the opportunity to become pregnant and have children.

James Daniel Hardy was a surgeon and researcher practicing in the United States during the twentieth century who studied organ transplantation, or the transfer of an organ from a donor to another individual. In 1963, he performed one of the first recorded lung transplants from a human lung donor. The transplant was successful for three weeks before the patient died of kidney failure. In 1964, Hardy also performed one of the first human heart transplants with a chimpanzee donor, and the transplanted heart pulsed for ninety minutes in the patient’s chest prior to death. He also collaborated on one of the first successful uterus and ovary transplants in a dog, in 1966. Hardy’s research on organ transplantation helped paved the way for improved forms of the technique, which as of 2025 saves the lives of millions of people every year.