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Child Receives Trachea Grown From Own Stem Cells
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."
Oh my GOSH.
Little risk of rejection, but what is the risk of cancer?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I'll never have to leave the house! If you know what I'm saying. This is slashdot, so I know that you do.
Why are we not funding this???
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
The headline would be correct if we can synthesize the collagen molding and do away with the need for donor organ.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
holy crap.
good job, guys.
weinersmith
...adjusting "penis enlargement" spam filter to let emails with "stem cells" in the subject or body through...
You're never too rich, too thin or too well-hung.
One "Aw, Shit!" is worth 100 "Ata boys!"
I know, this isn't a case of using embryonic stem cells but pretty much the politics of ESC work like this. Republicans will often give reasons that should make them be for it and yet are against it. Democrats on the other hand often give reasons to be against it but are for it. (But I just mostly shake my head when I hear either side talk.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Wait a second, stem cells that regenerate but will probably give you cancer, and nanoparticles that eat cancer for breakfast ...if my math works out correctly regeration + cancer - cancer = regeneration (or at least non-rejectable organ transfers). Can anyone say ultra combo?
More of this will come. It's wonderful.
Instead of using a donor and then stripping cells to get the collogen scaffold, next they should do 3-D printing of collogen into any shape they want. "Grown" organs in the future will not be grown, they will be built layer-by-layer.
The 'gosh' tag.
Thats pretty much exactly what I thought when I read the title. I knew we'd eventually pull this type of stuff off, but still now that its starting to happen ... thats pretty freaking cool.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
*Actual size.
They have a website regarding this procedure... http://www.throated.com/
Ok,so now we can grow a trachea, an esophagus and bronchi. All tubular structures. Which means intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum and colon) could be re-grown too.
The future is looking very bright indeed. Now we just have to work on the organs like the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas etc. And I don't think those are very far off, they've pretty much figured out how to vascularize large organs.
...wake me up when they do this with a larynx. I know a significant subset of the population who'd pay good money for that.
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-
Just to spare non-specialists the google: The trachea is the windpipe.
Would've been nice to include in TFS.
Now if only companies weren't patenting the dna and genome of people without their knowledge to later charge them preventative costs to access this care...
Oh wait... whoops. I mean.. Aweseme. Go science!
We need more of this to convince people that it is absolutely worth it to research and use stem cells as much as we can.
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While I agree that most that understand the difference have no objection to adult stem cell research (I happen to be one of those that opposes embryonic stem cell research, while supporting adult, and am very pleased to see that adult stem cells are proving more effective in practice), there will always be those that oppose things just because they are "new". Likewise there are those that support things just because they are "new". My only objection to this procedure is that it may not have been tested enough, but then again maybe that doesn't matter much (if he is going to die without it in one day, as long as the side effects don't include the zombie apocalypse, give it to him), if he dies of cancer in a year, that's one year of gravy.
If the kid's own embryonic stem cells had been harvested for this kind of experimental work, he would never have developed a problem with his trachea. Isn't this why we need to fully fund embryonic stem cell research with everyone's tax dollars? /irony
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
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.
That is wrong, sir. Find me someone that opposes embryonic stem cell work on religious or ethical grounds. Then ask if they're opposed to non-embryonic stem cell work. To a man, you'll find almost no one. Go to any major religious or conservative publication.... National Review, National Catholic Reporter, etc... and find me one of them... just one... that opposes non-embryonic research. Every single one of them, and major political and religious organizations... even the most conservative of churches... support non-embryonic work. And they've made this clear from the very beginning.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
And you also bring up something important that gets lost here. The restriction was only on federal funding of new stem cell lines. The research itself was never banned in any way, shape, or form. Nothing was stopping private organizations or states or universities from doing their own original embryonic cell work. The federal government just wasn't going to pay for it if it came from outside of existing stem cell lines already in the research pipeline.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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Good job indeed. Good job at writing the prequel to the new "Repo Man" movie.
Having just seen it, I made the same connection - but I came to a different conclusion. It just makes the movie look more stupid. I mean it already looked pretty poor. The story might have worked if it was made 30-40 years ago, but with medical science where it is - the thing looks pretty anachronistic.
While I was watching it, a number of things jumped out at me as silly. One of them was the cybernetic nature of all the implants - and therefore their ability to be "repo'd" at all. "Replacement organs aren't going to be mechanical" I thought to myself, and mentioned to my friend, "they are going to be biological and derived from your own cells".
This achievement pretty much bears that out. There would be no use in taking back what is essentially a "custom" organ - like this kid's trachea. It is of no use to anyone else because it uses his cells. The best you could hope for in that sort of vein (no pun intended..) would be to take it out, restrip it, and reseed it with someone else's cells. Or transplant it the traditional way (say, if it was a kidney).
But I am betting artificial scaffolds will be developed in short order (they are already working on them), and they'll be able to just fabricate organs from scratch. This will be cheaper and easier than donors anyway. People waiting for transplants are very expensive to the system - cooking one up and getting them out of the hospital fast will appeal to even the most evil CEO.
I think the future will be a bit brighter than the movie portrayed - at least in terms of artificial human organs.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.