Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant

Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.

Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.

Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.

The 36-year-old cancer patient is doing well a month after the operation.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Spain led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital.

In an interview with the BBC, he said he now hopes to use the technique to treat a nine-month-old child in Korea who was born with a malformed windpipe or trachea.

Professor Macchiarini already has 10 other windpipe transplants under his belt - most notably the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on 30-year-old Spanish woman Claudia Costillo - but all required a donor.

Indistinguishable

The key to the latest technique is modelling a structure or scaffold that is an exact replica of the patient's own windpipe, removing the need for a donor organ.

And we have yet another step forward with regenerative medicine and stem cell use. A windpipe that can be grown in a matter of days, coupled with the fact its made from the patients own cells, there is no longer a need for donors or immune system supression drugs that would be required for a donor.

Science is awesome.

I'll put in a bigger dip of Copenhagen now that I've read this. Great news for us rednecks!

Originally posted by navy_vet_stg3
I'll put in a bigger dip of Copenhagen now that I've read this.

Great news for us rednecks!

Lol nice... Im going to wager that in 5 years a lot of the health issues we have now dealing with organs / cancer etc are going to bet a lot smaller in numbers.

I was just about to make a thread about this, but you beat me to it...

I was amazed when i read this.
This is one of the most interesting news stories i've heard in a long time. They also mentioned that they can use the same method to make arteries and veins... Useful and awesome.
So how long until complex organs? 5, 10 years?

But if anyone's seen Repo Men... What if it ends up like that

Originally posted by AndrewRose
I was just about to make a thread about this, but you beat me to it...

I was amazed when i read this.
This is one of the most interesting news stories i've heard in a long time. They also mentioned that they can use the same method to make arteries and veins... Useful and awesome.
So how long until complex organs? 5, 10 years?

But if anyone's seen Repo Men... What if it ends up like that

I think this topic is important, any my thrads generally dont attract a lot of readers. Feel free to repost if you want and I can ask a mod to close this one down. Maybe you can give the topic a jumpstart in conversation.