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Well, this is truly amazing. Thanks to Adult Stem Cell research or as I like to say REPAIR Stem Cell research, doctors have been able to create a new windpipe (trachea) for a woman using her own REPAIR Stem Cells.
Claudia Castillo caught tuberculosis which in turn caused her trachea to collapse. It was sinking into her lung and the doctors were thinking they would have to remove the lung in a dangerous procedure that even if successful wouldn't have left Claudia Castillo with a good quality of life.
They decided instead to make her a new trachea. They extracted
Adult Stem Cells from her bone marrow, grew and multiplied them and coaxed them into becoming cartilage cells. Next, they took a trachea from a deceased donor and sterilized it, erasing the cells from it so when implanted would cause no rejection issues.
Then, using a special machine, they grew the new Adult (REPAIR) Stem Cells around the donated trachea with the trachea acting as a scaffold. The
Repair Stem Cells did the rest as they are made to do. They formed a new trachea and then it was implanted back into Claudia Castillo.
Walla!!! A brand new windpipe, one composed entirely of her own cells. A new windpipe for which she does not have to take immuno-suppressing drugs for the rest of her life because her body will not reject what is made of her own Repair Stem Cells.
This truly wonderful story has made all the major news outlets. And what is also wonderful is that these media outlets that once ignored Adult Stem Cell success stories and only trumpeted Embryonic Stem Cell research are now forced to take notice and acknowledge that it was indeed Adult Stem Cells that are responsible for this miracle:
From the
New York Times:
Anthony Hollander, a professor at Bristol University, said ethical concerns relating to embryonic stem cell research had not surfaced in the latest procedure because it had used only the patient's own stem cells. “This was not embryonic stem cell research, he said in a telephone interview.From
CNN: So, her doctors decided to build her a new airway, using
adult stem cells taken from her bone marrow, not from the embryonic stem cells that cause so much controversy. It has never been done before in a human.
From
Bloomberg: The donor windpipe, or trachea, was washed 25 times to strip away all vestiges of live tissue, which could trigger rejection, then coated with cartilage cells grown from Castillo's
own adult stem cells to trick her body into accepting the transplant, the doctors said in The Lancet.
As a sidenote- this whole process which took years of planning and hundreds of hours of work on research and production almost was ruined when EasyJet refused to allow the new windpipe on board their airplane. Remember, the cells can only survive for a limited time outside the lab or human body. So they took the new windpipe out of the lab and tried to board the plane to take it to Barcelona where Ms. Castillo and a team of surgeons were eagerly waiting. When EasyJet refused to allow it on board, the quick thinking doctors had to find another way to get the windpipe to Barcelona with the clock ticking.
The BBC has more on this.