BLACKSBURG, Virginia — Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation — and there's no rolling around in the mud here.

The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains — behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down your vehicle, swapping your clothes for medical scrubs and stepping into tubs of disinfectant to clean your boots between each air-conditioned barn.

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