Born Without a Windpipe, Now Breathing A Full Life
Hannah Warren has become the youngest person to ever receive a bioengineered tissue transplant, receiving a windpipe created from her own stem cells grown around a special plastic scaffold. This “proto-windpipe” is then recognized by the body, and (through processes that aren’t entirely clear) a fully developed windpipe, complete with the many layers of specialized cells, is formed with the scaffold and stem cells as its guide.
I’ve posted about these bioengineered transplants in older patients before, but I think this captures the amazement we all feel:
Dr. Macchiarini described a look of befuddlement on the child’s face when she realized that the mouth tube was gone and she could put her lips together for the first time. “It was beautiful,” he said.
Yes. Beautiful, indeed. Way to go science.
(via New York Times)
