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Woman Receives First Transplant Grown From Her Own Cells

by Terrence O'Brien on November 20, 2008 at 07:49 AM


Remember all the hype around stem cells? They were going to cure diseases, grow body parts, and allow us to create a race of soulless cloned underlings. Well, now that some of the controversy has died down and research has had a chance to advance, stem cells are starting to bear some fruit.

A woman from Barcelona has become the first patient to receive an organ transplant that was grown in a laboratory from her own stem cells. Claudia Castillo contracted tuberculosis, which left her wind pipe irreparably damaged and one of her lungs collapsed. She was unable to breathe on her own until the doctors replaced part of her windpipe with one grown from stem cells harvested from her own body.

Most transplant patients spend the rest of their lives taking piles of drugs to suppress their immune systems and prevent their bodies from rejecting the foreign organs. But since Castillo is 100-percent genetically compatible with the transplant, she can forego the treatment and won't face the same complications that other transplant patients do.



The transplant actually took place months ago, but doctors waited to announce the results until they were sure that Castillo's body would not reject the new windpipe. Initially, doctors will expand the process to other patients in need of a similar procedure, and then hopefully to other hollow organ reproduction (such as bladders). Scientists believe they'll eventually be able to grow solid organs such as hearts.

We're still crossing our fingers for lab-grown servants who will wash our dishes and walk the dog. We'll take all the organ failure in the world as long as we don't have to scrape five-day-old dried oatmeal out of bowls anymore. [From: The Independent]

Tags: health, medicine, science, stem cells, StemCells, transplant

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