Child Receives Trachea Grown From Own Stem Cells 103
kkleiner writes "Doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) along with colleagues at the University College London, the Royal Free Hospital, and Careggi University Hospital in Florence have successfully transplanted a trachea into a 10 year old boy using his own stem cells. A donor trachea was taken, stripped of its cells into a collagen-like scaffold, and then infused with the boy's stem cells. The trachea was surgically placed into the boy and allowed to develop in place. Because his own cells were used, there was little to no risk of rejection. This was the first time a child had received such a stem cell augmented transplant and the first time that a complete trachea had been used."
Re:Cancer? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone's stance on stem cell research should be queried by the DMV and added to your driver's license, just like organ donation. Then when you need a medical procedure that has benefited from stem cell research, you get the version of the procedure that's in line with your beliefs.
I know... but I can dream can't I?
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Informative)
Um, you are. Or at least, you could be. The restrictions on federal funding are on embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells are interesting for their pluripotency. Adult stem cells are interesting because they don't trigger rejection. Generally, nobody has any problem with adult-stem research.
Re:Cancer? (Score:3, Informative)
They came from his cord blood. I'm pretty sure that can be considered embryonic, but I'm not a doctor or scientist. Just a happy parent.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:1, Informative)
We are... this is a form of adult stem cell use, which was not excluded by the bush ban on embryonic stem cell research. this ban was also recently overturned.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Informative)
correction:
Nobody who understands the difference has fought against funding for research into cures using adult stem cells.
There's a massive ignorant crowd of fundies who still consider anything and everything to do with stem cells to be bad.