The patient. The kidneys of Teca, a four-year-old Himalayan, were failing, and conventional treatments did not help. So Teca's owners, Craig and Maera, turned to Clare Gregory, a veterinary surgeon and researcher at the University of California, Davis.
Hours before the surgery, Teca rests in a sterile, quarantined kennel. Gregory's team has given him drugs that expose his immune system to pathogens a healthy cat would fend off. [Photo by Don Preisler]