Lab-Made Organ Implanted For First Time
For the first time, a patient has received a synthetic windpipe that was created in a lab with the patient's own stem cells and without using human donor tissue, researchers said Thursday.
Previous lab-generated transplants either used a segment of donor windpipe or involved tissue only, not an organ.
In a laboratory in London, scientists created a trachea, which is a tube-like airway that connects at the voice box and branches into both lungs.
On June 9, doctors implanted this synthetic windpipe into a 36-year-old man with late-stage tracheal cancer at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. The patient is doing well and is expected to be released from the hospital Friday, said Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, professor of regenerative medicine there.
Tracheal cancers are extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all cancers.
After the patient's initial diagnosis in 2008, he had exhausted every treatment available, including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, Macchiarini said. The patient, an Eritrean who had been studying in Iceland, is the subject of a BBC documentary airing Thursday in Sweden.
His tumor had almost blocked his windpipe, doctors said.
Rather than waiting for a transplant, his doctors suggested growing an organ. Scientists created a Y-shaped framework for the new trachea, modeling it after the specific shape of the patient's windpipe.
The form was made of polymers that had a spongy and flexible texture. Stiff rings around the tube mimicked the structure of a human trachea.
The form was then bathed in a solution containing the patient's stem cells "to get the cells to grow on the sponge material," said David Green, president of Harvard Bioscience. Stem cells can divide and turn into a range of cell types, including those in organs.
The stem cells were given physical or chemical cues to create the desired type, Green said.
Once the cells were thriving on the form, the artificial trachea was implanted into the patient.
His body accepted the new trachea, and he even had a cough reflex two days after the surgery, Macchiarini said.
Three years ago, Macchiarini made headlines by implanting an artificial trachea created from donor tissue combined with stem cells from the recipient, Claudia Castillo, whose windpipe had been damaged by tuberculosis.
"The results were quite good, but unfortunately we were still dependent" on organ donation, which can take months, Macchiarini said.
Creating the synthetic structure for the trachea in the current case took 10 to 12 days, compared with waiting months for an organ donor, Macchiarini said.
Earlier this year, regenerative medicine scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported that they had engineered five urethras between March 2004 and July 2007.
They had used a small piece of each patient's own tissue from the bladder, then grew the cells in a lab onto a mesh scaffold shaped like a urethra.
This area of research remains somewhat controversial in medicine, because critics say this could lead to human cloning.
But Macchiarini said making these first artificial organs viable in patients opens doors for future transplants through the relatively new field of regenerative medicine.
"It's a beautiful international collaboration," he said about the recent effort that involved doctors and researches in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. "If scientists and clinicians work together, we can help humanity." -CNN Health
For the first time, a patient has received a synthetic windpipe that was created in a lab with the patient's own stem cells and without using human donor tissue, researchers said Thursday.
Previous lab-generated transplants either used a segment of donor windpipe or involved tissue only, not an organ.
In a laboratory in London, scientists created a trachea, which is a tube-like airway that connects at the voice box and branches into both lungs.
On June 9, doctors implanted this synthetic windpipe into a 36-year-old man with late-stage tracheal cancer at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. The patient is doing well and is expected to be released from the hospital Friday, said Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, professor of regenerative medicine there.
Tracheal cancers are extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all cancers.
After the patient's initial diagnosis in 2008, he had exhausted every treatment available, including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, Macchiarini said. The patient, an Eritrean who had been studying in Iceland, is the subject of a BBC documentary airing Thursday in Sweden.
His tumor had almost blocked his windpipe, doctors said.
Rather than waiting for a transplant, his doctors suggested growing an organ. Scientists created a Y-shaped framework for the new trachea, modeling it after the specific shape of the patient's windpipe.
The form was made of polymers that had a spongy and flexible texture. Stiff rings around the tube mimicked the structure of a human trachea.
The form was then bathed in a solution containing the patient's stem cells "to get the cells to grow on the sponge material," said David Green, president of Harvard Bioscience. Stem cells can divide and turn into a range of cell types, including those in organs.
The stem cells were given physical or chemical cues to create the desired type, Green said.
Once the cells were thriving on the form, the artificial trachea was implanted into the patient.
His body accepted the new trachea, and he even had a cough reflex two days after the surgery, Macchiarini said.
Three years ago, Macchiarini made headlines by implanting an artificial trachea created from donor tissue combined with stem cells from the recipient, Claudia Castillo, whose windpipe had been damaged by tuberculosis.
"The results were quite good, but unfortunately we were still dependent" on organ donation, which can take months, Macchiarini said.
Creating the synthetic structure for the trachea in the current case took 10 to 12 days, compared with waiting months for an organ donor, Macchiarini said.
Earlier this year, regenerative medicine scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine reported that they had engineered five urethras between March 2004 and July 2007.
They had used a small piece of each patient's own tissue from the bladder, then grew the cells in a lab onto a mesh scaffold shaped like a urethra.
This area of research remains somewhat controversial in medicine, because critics say this could lead to human cloning.
But Macchiarini said making these first artificial organs viable in patients opens doors for future transplants through the relatively new field of regenerative medicine.
"It's a beautiful international collaboration," he said about the recent effort that involved doctors and researches in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. "If scientists and clinicians work together, we can help humanity." -CNN Health
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Mom Gets Probation for Spanking Her Child
When I was a kid, about 90% of parents would have been considered criminals:
A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation.
“You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”
Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a “pretty simple, straightforward spanking case.” They noted she didn’t use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.
As part of the plea deal, Gonzales will serve five years probation, during which time she’ll have to take parenting classes, follow CPS guidelines, and make a $50payment to the Children’s Advocacy Center.
She was arrested back in December after the child’s paternal grandmother noticed red marks on the child’s rear end. The grandmother took the girl, who was two years-old at the time, to the hospital to be checked out. –Vision To America
When I was a kid, about 90% of parents would have been considered criminals:
A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation.
“You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”
Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a “pretty simple, straightforward spanking case.” They noted she didn’t use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.
As part of the plea deal, Gonzales will serve five years probation, during which time she’ll have to take parenting classes, follow CPS guidelines, and make a $50payment to the Children’s Advocacy Center.
She was arrested back in December after the child’s paternal grandmother noticed red marks on the child’s rear end. The grandmother took the girl, who was two years-old at the time, to the hospital to be checked out. –Vision To America
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Democrat: We Need ‘Analysis of How Christian Militants. . . Might Bring Down The Country’
At a congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to “bring down the country.”
In an exchange with witness Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector of the criminal intelligence unit, New York Department of Correctional Services, Rep. Jackson Lee mentioned the case of a man who blew up an abortion clinic and proposed that this perhaps was an attempt to undermine U.S. law that allows a woman to procure an abortion.
Rep. Lee then said, “As we look to be informational, we should include an analysis of how Christian militants or others might bring down the country. We have to look broadly, do we not?”
Dunleavy answered: “I don’t know that Christian militants have foreign country backing or foreign country financing.” -Vision To America
At a congressional hearing on Muslim radicalization in U.S. prisons, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to “bring down the country.”
In an exchange with witness Patrick Dunleavy, the former deputy inspector of the criminal intelligence unit, New York Department of Correctional Services, Rep. Jackson Lee mentioned the case of a man who blew up an abortion clinic and proposed that this perhaps was an attempt to undermine U.S. law that allows a woman to procure an abortion.
Rep. Lee then said, “As we look to be informational, we should include an analysis of how Christian militants or others might bring down the country. We have to look broadly, do we not?”
Dunleavy answered: “I don’t know that Christian militants have foreign country backing or foreign country financing.” -Vision To America
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