Using a Lab-Grown Trachea, Surgeons Conduct the World's First Synthetic Organ Transplant

First, just thought I'd get that out of the way.

This is pretty amazing. I am almost feeling like by the time I'm 50 (thats still a good 26 years) we will be able to grow all of our insides from stem cells, and replace all but our brains... hmmm... live forever? Sorry I had to make the first comment an "un-informing" one. :)

$Spades$

This is GREAT! When I first saw the lab-grown bladder in 2006 I had a feeling that we would reach these new milestones soon. And being a US Army veteran, I am just tickled that I may finally be able to get that "backyotomy" I have wanted for years! Thank you Human Race. My only question now is, where will it end? Could this be what we have always wanted? The so called fountain of youth? Theoretically, we could soon be replacing our own skin, just a larger scaffold.

Glass?!?!? please explain...

This is Wonderful. Our European healthcare system is really getting a big boost from this. So many people can now be helped. It truly is one of the biggest medical breakthroughs we have been waiting for.

Most amazing thing I've seen in years. This is where American tax dollars should go instead of to dragged out un-winnable wars.

Just another reason we need more stem-cell research. Just think, if there was never a resistance to stem-cell research, this breakthrough could have happened a decade ago.

So now we can regenerate DNA protein caps, we can "cut and paste" DNA segments, and we can grow our own replacement parts. Wonderful!!

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

CodeZero,

Please that this procedure did not use embryonic stem-cells. The stem cells used where taken from the patient's bone marrow. I do not know anyone who opposes this.

@cholin3947, stem cells can be taken from plenty of places, you can get embryonic stem cells from the ambilical cord, the point is, if the research wasn't suppressed, the technology would be far more advanced than it is today. I've done debates on this topic in college. Stem cell research as a whole has felt opposition because of the lack of understanding by those that opposed it. The "fetal" stem cell issue was always the top line, and most people would never bother to get past that. Or when research was suggested, it would be denied because it *MIGHT* contain fetal stem cells. Over the past 20 years, stem cell research has felt massive restriction. if that restriction was not present, we would have seen this breakthrough years ago. Where the stem cells were acquired is of little importance, the research was hindered, end of story.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

This is exactly the sort of lifechanging stuff some excellent people are creating. The future will be very interesting to see in this sort of medicine.

http://opentothefuture.com

I'm with @bitts3000 - what's up with the glass? I feel like PopSci missed something important, like telling is why they just stuck glass in a dude's throat. I get that it's a non-reactive substance, but what kind of glass? Fiberglass? Does it ever come out?

Glass is used as a scaffold because glass does not react with the body - there are only a few materials that are completely unreactive, glass is one of them.

If they have to use glass as a scaffolding... that seems like a very limiting factor for the types of organs they can grow (from a flexibility perspective)... at least potentially...

Yup.. in copying the artical from the BBC site, they left off key bits of info about the glass:

"Using these images, the scientists at University College London were able to craft a perfect copy of Mr Beyene's trachea and two main bronchi out of glass.

This was then flown to Sweden and soaked in a solution of stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow.

After two days, the millions of holes in the porous windpipe had been seeded with the patient's own tissue."

So the glass "scaffolding" was soaked in stem cell fluid until the cells started attaching and building up their own structure. It would be safe to assume that once this took place, that the glass would be removed, since it's sort of hard to have such a hard, unmovable object in place were flexablity is critical.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

Just another reason we need more induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research. Just think, if we had only stopped wasting money on embryonic stem cell research when iPSCs became available, this breakthrough could have happened a years ago.

Embryonic stem cells will never work as well as stem cells which the patient's body won't reject, so why do we continue to waste tax dollars on a embryonic stem cells?

Codezero, are you just talking out of your butt or do you know what you're saying? I don't flexibility is a critical for a windpipe. In fact I would think it has to be quite stiff. As others have pointed out, glass is apparently nonreactive in the human body. If they remove it, that brings back the question, why glass?

@Bueh,

It would need to be non-reactive since the stem cells growing on top of it are "the human body".

Although, I'm not sure that the bit CodeZero posted is enough evidence to definitely say that they remove the glass after the stem cells have created a structure of their own around it.

It seems to me that it would be kinda hard to remove a porous glass structure from inside the stem-cell structure which was created all around the glass.

Of course... it might be a special glass that is flexible?

@M.Smith,

"Embryonic stem cells will never work as well as stem cells which the patient's body won't reject"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080915122723.htm

Seems like making an embryo with genetic similarity to yourself is pretty straight-forward...and solves that problem.

I can't tell who is being sarcastic. First RTFA. Second the glass was a scaffold built I a lab, kept in a lab, and not ever in the patient. Once the trachea was grown on the scaffold the scaffold was removed and the trachea-minus glass-was installed in the lucky dude. Flexibility was never an issue. In other news the article say it was grown from his own marrow stem sells. Thus no possibilty of rejection. No embryonic stem cells were used.

When they say "glass" they probably mean glass fibers, which are actually quite flexible.

@B.V.: Seems like making stem cells out of your own cells is pretty straightforward...and solves that problem. Solves it better, in fact, as there's no middleman. The process taken in THIS article was very quick and all they needed from him was a few cells. Admittedly, they were already one kind of stem cell (bone marrow), but research into the ability to take a person's own cells and convert them into a specific kind of stem cell is, to me, far more valuable than research into doing the same with embryonic stem cells.

As for me, I have no problem with umbilical stem cells, it's embryonic stem cells harvested from what already has the potential to become a fully grown human being that I draw the line at. Regardless, if it weren't for the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, I'd argue that induced stem cell research wouldn't be half as far as it is now.

For a bunch of smart people who read science publications, the comments section on this site is sometimes surprisingly stupid. Look up the definition of SCAFFOLD people:
scaffold [ˈskæfəld -fəʊld]
n
1. (Miscellaneous Technologies / Building) a temporary metal or wooden framework that is used to support workmen and materials during the erection, repair, etc., of a building or other construction

You can expect to find the word temporary in all of them. Do you see them leave the scaffolding on the building when it's done? Popsci probably just didn't think they'd have to draw it out for you guys. Yikes.

Hello, I told you this since the beginning. The Singularity is coming. So I am glad everything is on track. May we all live happily ever after in the Singularity. Let us take to the stars and explore the heavens. Ray Kurzweil out.

Something wrong about this story. Cancer is from generally two sources. One is environmental and the other genetic. I leave out virus's.

You can't take cells that have a genetic flaw and try to recreate any organ. It will just fail.

This leaves us with how a person got cancer. Did they fix a smoker?

DickySimms, your comment is uncalled for and ill-informed. Of course in the context of building actual buildings, a scaffold is temporary. However, in the context of biomedicine, I'm fairly certain a 'scaffold' gets its name from the fact that it looks like a scaffold, rather than because it has the exact same function as a scaffold used for buildings. In fact, I just found a definition that doesn't have the word 'temporary' in it, from a medical dictionary:

scaffold,
n a support, either natural or artificial, that maintains tissue contour.

from:
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/scaffold

@Bueh.. flexablity not an issue? really? I guess you don't know your anus from your articulatio cubiti.

"The trachea has an inner diameter of about 21 to 27 millimetres (0.83 to 1.1 in) and a length of about 10 to 16 centimetres (3.9 to 6.3 in). It commences at the larynx, level with the fifth cervical vertebra, and bifurcates into the primary bronchi at the vertebral level of T4/T5.

There are about fifteen to twenty incomplete C-shaped cartilaginous rings that reinforce the anterior and lateral sides of the trachea to protect and maintain the airway. The trachealis muscle connects the ends of the incomplete rings and contracts during coughing, reducing the size of the lumen of the trachea to increase the air flow rate. The esophagus lies posteriorly to the trachea. The cartilaginous rings are incomplete to allow the trachea to collapse slightly so that food can pass down the esophagus. A flap-like epiglottis closes the opening to the larynx during swallowing to prevent swallowed matter from entering the trachea."

So it your trachea wasn't flexable, you wouldn't be able to eat or cough... important actions.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

Interesting... I wonder what the need is for a synthetic scaffold in light of the breakthroughs in using striped-down cadaver organs as the scaffold. The skeptic in me says: money.

Cool Article!

@everyone...read the caption under the pic, seems obvious the scafold was filled in with his own stem cells then transplanted, doesn't even hint at it being removed which would probably kill all the new tissue, i just read the BBC article and it is so obvious the scafold is not removed that there is no need to mention it

The scaffold used in this technology is actually a nanocomposite polymer. The glass that the BBC article refers to was used as a mold, presumably to form the nanocomposite polymer into the proper shape. The nancomposite polymer is porous and is used as a substrate for the cells. Alexander Seifalian at UCL has been working with these materials for a number years and has developed a number of medical applications using these polymers. What makes the polymers special is that they can support cells and the growth and differentiation of the cells and the body does not seem to recognize the polymer as foreign.

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clearing that up, Buttons. My only remaining question is why PopSci doesn't have an article on this nanocomposite polymer...

@cholin3947,
CodeZero,
and any one else shilling for embryonic stem cell research.

The facts are that all reported therapies based on embryonic stem cell lines cause tumors or don't work. Fujikawa, et al. (2005) reported teratoma formation within mice receiving embryonic stem cell therapy for pancreatic disease. The relationship between tumor stem cells and embryonic cells is well known in the literature (Martin, 1998). More recently, research through the NIH, continues to suggest that "Teratoma formation is a critical obstacle to safe clinical translation of human embryonic stem (ES) cell-based therapies in the future," (Lee, et al., 2009).

Instead of trying to make embryonic stem cells work (not induce tumors) all that money would be better spent on PROVEN therapies, such as the trachea transplant (a PROVEN therapy). Funding should go to what works.

Fujikawa, et al. 2005. amjpathol.highwire.org/cgi/content/full/166/6/1781
Martin, 1998. www.pnas.org/content/78/12/7634.full.pdf
Lee, et al., 2009.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866168/