Stem cells breathe life into windpipe
20 November 2008
A breathtaking breakthrough sees a windpipe, the first body part grown from stem cells, successfully transplanted into a patient.
Claudia Castillo suffered a collapsed windpipe after contracting TB. Normally doctors would risk removing her lung. 'Instead we took a donor windpipe and stripped it of cells, leaving a scaffold. It was coated with cells grown from Ms Castillo's stem cells and surgically transplanted to replace her damaged windpipe,' explains Martin Birchall, the project's coordinator at Bristol University.
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Ms Castillo's damaged windpipe.
Image: The Lancet |
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