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."
Great Ormond Street Hospital (Score:0, Insightful)
Oh my GOSH.
In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Minor" correction (Score:2, Insightful)
let me just say (Score:5, Insightful)
good job, guys.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the recent advances are done using stem cells from the patient's own body... this was always legal, but too many people got caught up in fighting for embryonic stem. Maybe the restrictions against using embryonic stem cells advanced medical technology by pushing researchers and doctors to use the patient's own stem cells instead.
Re:Cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's always some people who need surgery NOW and whether they get cancer in 2-5-10-20 years or not it's still a win. I'm all for medical testing and not rushing out unsafe procedures, but the reactions I see are mostly knee-jerk "it's STEM cells, omg you can't" not based on real research. In fact, they don't want the research done in the first place. Of course it's highly experimental medically, so was heart transplants. The first guy survived two weeks, but today we average 15 years. Research can prove or disprove (ok, don't get all philosophical on me) whether it helps medically, but it won't matter because most of the resistance is due to the fanatic anti-abortion crowd which equate embryonic stem cells with unborn babies. And if it's not embryonic, they'll pretend there's no difference because only blind rage will do.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Insightful)
We are--- the restrictions on stem-cell funding have always been on embryonic stem cells, not on research involving stem cells derived from post-fetus-stage living humans, as is the case here.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Who is "we" in your question? This was done by:
Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) along with colleagues at the University College London, the Royal Free Hospital, and Careggi University Hospital in Florence
2) If you meant the United States, this would be government funded had it been done in that country since it deals with adult stem cells.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:2, Insightful)
So if the parent comment is true, then we are better off due to the anti-abortion crowd. You see, if it wasn't for that there might not have been as much research into adult stem cells. Because embryonic ones are "good enough". Who cares if the patient has to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life, that is just more money the pharma companies get.
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the recent advances are done using stem cells from the patient's own body... this was always legal, but too many people got caught up in fighting for embryonic stem. Maybe the restrictions against using embryonic stem cells advanced medical technology by pushing researchers and doctors to use the patient's own stem cells instead.
Not at all. This was a natural evolution, especially due to the rejection issues. If anything, we would have had this technology sooner as more scientists would have gotten involved earlier, and we would be much further ahead.
Re:Cancer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know... but I can dream can't I?
Dream? You can't even pay attention. No one has fought against funding for research into cures using adult stem cells. No one has fought against funding for research into cures using your own stem cells. Try to pay attention.
LK
Re:In the immortal words of Peter Griffin... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm ...
His original statement is most certainly fact, more scientists where forced into doing things like this with stem cells because they couldn't use the embryonic cells they would have liked to use. This isn't something debatable, its history, its what happened.
You can say it may have happened faster some other way, but you can't say that more people would have been working on it since the rules forced that didn't want to use this method to use it. No one that wanted to use this method stopped completely to make a point because they weren't allowed to use some other method, thats only something GPL fan boys and political nut jobs do.
You can go ahead and try to push your own political agenda for other forms of stem cell research, thats cool and all, but the facts and history make it pretty obvious your statement doesn't really have any connection to reality.
Re:Cancer? (Score:3, Insightful)