Stem Cells Spawn First Drug-Free Windpipe Transplant

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 month 2 weeks (www.bloomberg.com)

Doctors operating on a 30-year-old Colombian woman restored her ability to breathe freely with the world's first transplanted windpipe specially treated to prevent organ rejection.

The airway connecting Claudia Castillo Sanchez's left lung to her windpipe collapsed after a persistent tuberculosis infection, leaving her short of breath and unable to perform routine daily activities. Efforts to prop it open failed, leaving Spanish doctors two options: remove the lung or replace the airway using an experimental technique tried only in animals

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Tissue engineering triumph: Doctors transplant a trachea made from the patient's own stem cells

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 month 2 weeks (www.lancet.com)

The medical journal Lancet has just announced that doctors have performed the first successful trachea transplant using a trachea crafted from the patient's own stem cells. The New York Times is hailing this as a revolutionary step in regenerative medicine. The surgery took place in Barcelona this past June. Researchers from universities in Spain, Britain and Italy collaborated on the preparation. The patient's original trachea--actually one of her bronchi--had been damaged by severe tuberculosis.

Prof

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