Slashdot Mirror
Full Facial Transplant Is One Step Closer
Hugh Pickens writes "A Chinese medical team led by Shuzhong Guo of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi'an has successfully completed the first transplant to include facial bone in a transplant on a man whose face was slashed by a bear. The Chinese graft included muscles, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage and skin and included an intact salivary gland, another first. Two years after the procedure, the man can eat, drink and speak, thanks to the gradual fusing of transplanted nerves and muscles with what remained of the patient's own. This transplant together with the another ground breaking transplant last year by French doctors that removed a huge tumor that had completely infiltrated and disfigured their patient's face, now sets the stage for a full facial transplant."
Saw a pretty good documentary on this about 10 years ago. Ah, here it is.
What next? Magnetically-operated prisons?
The article doesn't mention this; but John Woo was a technical consultant for the Chinese surgical team.
#DeleteChrome
A Chinese medical team...has successfully completed the first facial transplant
They will do ANYTHING to ensure that their underage gymnasts can compete in the Olympics.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Awesome! Science will soon catch up with Hollywood! What's next? Will John Travolta actually get to have wings added on?
This is one of the 12 year olds that is planning to compete in London 2012... Nobody will suspect a thing!
Chinese Olympic Gymnast
I'm a big tall mofo.
From the article:
The Chinese team, led by Shuzhong Guo of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi'an, is the first to include facial bone in a face transplant, carried out on 13 April 2006.
The correct version should read:
The Chinese team, led by Shuzhong Guo of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi'an, is the first to include facial bone in a face transplant, carried out on 13 April 2004.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
May I be first in line for a brain transplant?
I can't imagine what it would feel like to get a normal life again after an accident like that, only to have your face literally start falling off ten years later because the body rejected the tissue.
I wonder how many people would actually be willing to donate their face. It's one thing to donate blood or donate an organ when you die, but to donate part of or the entirety of what makes you most visibly recognizable? Even though the donor would be dead, the family might have issues with disfiguring the corpse.
...those aren't wings, those are thetans :(
Slashdot would greatly benefit from disabling anonymous commenting.
How about the voice? Can they duplicate the vocal chords too?
slashdot rocks
Now all I need is artificial intelligence and plastic personality to go.
Slashdot would greatly benefit from disabling anonymous commenting.
I agree.
I was reading about this story this morning. The BBC has more pictures here.
What I found funny is that the caption for the first photo warns, "SOME MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING IMAGES DISTURBING." Personally, I found the first photo - the photo to which that warning is attached - the most disturbing. Yes, more disturbing than the tumor-face.
There's also a photo in there which reminded me of Two-face from The Dark Knight, but it's too blurry to be scary.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
So I suppose now he can grin and bear it.
In your face, bear!
Bear's response: Ooooooh, Face!
bear/
Think he picked out the new one with FaceBook?
Boy, is his face Red.
Now he'll have to face the truth like he's never faced it before.
...+1, Groan plz?
Best thing about a face transplant? Turning up at the donors funeral and making ghost noises.
"Face the Face" :D
Tissues can be generated without removing them from a corpse. Yes the voice box can be changed. Entire voice boxes can be built from existing tissue with lasers. Stem cell research has evolved to replace organs. Human neural cells have been integrated in an animal brain. Gene sequences can be changed and grown. New genes can be incorporated in living cells. This is not the only face transplant and in fact I was assisting a doctor in ENT when she rebuilt the lower half of a face in 1975. She also built voice boxes for people who had none, congenitally. I guess we will soon be going to the 'Carousel'.
I appreciate the informative, but I was trying to be funny.
Hint for the humor-impaired: Chinese Gymnasts.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
full facials for years....oh wait, whats that, "full facial transplants", nevermind.
Monstar L
What if only half the brain is transplanted? What if only a portion?
If I'm dying and I have a part of my brain implanted in you, are "you" legally married to your pre-op spouse, my pre-op spouse, or both of them?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Oh i see if the guy in texas chainsaw massacre where's your face it's a crime but if these guys do it they are heroes.
Welcome to identity theft, modern style.
Let me see...
1) Get laid
2) Swap faces
3) ???
4) Skip out on charges for Gross Sexual Misconduct!
It's fool-proof!
You insensitive clods! This is not news for nerds. Many of us are quite attractive! Why would we need face transplants?
Slashdot would greatly benefit from disabling anonymous commenting.
I agree.
Sense of humor died long ago on /.
I didn't because I would have felt like a hypocrite. That is probably not the right word, but when I first saw the pictures, I was all like W.T.F?!? I thought the "after" picture was the before picture until I started scrolling though a little bit (I saw this article on a different site that had more photos).
The other site also had the photos featured from this article:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5il4qlI62UWuVdQ-az7K0N7OvGEoQD92N0TFO1
Again, it was a total W.T.F. moment for me. No, not a Worse Than Failure® moment, but you know what I mean. I got a little introspective after that and decided to leave it alone. Like, what if I saw that guy on the street, would I gasp in horror? Would I stare in amazement? I felt like my submitting it would just be a point and stare opportunity. Please tell me I am not the only one that had this thought.
"One step closer"? From what I read, Pascal Coler's (the neurofibromatosis guy) *was* a full facial transplant.
This quote by the lead doctor, Shuzhong Guo, was recorded by our reporter.
I want to take his face.... off!
You can't handle the truth.
Face-off was pretty good, even with John Revolta!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
because they all look alike
Come on, 50+ comments in and no one has done a "face plant" joke?
You had me at "full facial".
Hey Earl watch this .. a panda bear is going to take this bamboo shoot right out of my mouth.......
My quest to look like David Hasselhoff is nearing fruition!
Ok, so now we can transplant faces but tell me, Doctor, can we transplant the heart of a good movie into a Travolta vehicle?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
And no smarty pants comments about Chinese losing face!
It was a (presumably sane) doctor named Robert White, in Ohio.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1263758.stm
It was a "success" in the sense that the monkey's head stayed alive and conscious for a few days. The nerves were still severed and it could not control the body it was transplanted to. Even so, I found it amazing.
Of course, that's quite different from the facial transplant in the article. Not surprisingly, spinal nerves are harder to repair than the smaller ones in your face.
---
now they can go face shopping on Rodeo Drive. It puts a whole new spin to online shopping in facebook.
Now I can go bear-wrestle like I've always wanted to!
some have tentacles!
Looks to me like most of the women on the chinese team look like they're fresh out of the local sex-change clinic... remember the swimming team from a few years back?
Why? Moderation seems to take care of the most obvious troll/flamebait attempts, such as GP.
...It's funny because it's racist.
In 10 years most of those cells would already be your own for several cell generations.
If there is going to be rejection, that would have to happen much sooner than 10 years.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
That's one weak troll. Maybe it needs to eat more peasants?
I really don't see how it's a fist in the face of creationists, even though I'm most certainly not one myself.
Personally, if I have a gripe with the (lack of) logic in an opponent's argument, I don't respond with logicless statements of my own.
I hate printers.
As a Slashdot geek, I can only hope...
any objection if we just have at her now?
there's no shortage of 'volunteers' (read political prisoners) in China lined up for these kinds of donations.
Seriously, defy your principles and LOOK at the article, there is a picture of the guy after transplant.
How anyone could call a horribly disfigured result 'successful' in a cosmetic procedure is beyond me.
Seriously, the few times i've trusted photo links by msn and it ends up being a bear attack it's always the face.
Woohoo! Now they can take the face off the pretty young girl and put it on the ugly little girl that can sing. NO MORE LIP SYNCING!!
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
All your face are belong to us!
You know its love when you memorize her IP address to skip DNS overhead.