The synthetic trachea, just before implantation
What's the News: An African man's new trachea is the world's first synthetic organ to be transplanted. Made from a polymer scaffold coated with the patient's own cells, the windpipe seems to be working out well, more than a month after the surgery. How the Heck:
The patient had an inoperable golfball-sized tumor, which hadn't responded well to chemo or radiation treatments, obscuring his windpipe. While patients in such straits often receive donor tracheae, none were available.
Scientists built a polymer scaffold exactly the same size and shape as the patient's trachea and two primary bronchi, using 3D scans taken of the patient as a model.
Another group of scientists then seeded the artificial trachea with stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow. The cells were allowed to grow for two days, as researchers prodded them to differentiate into the various tissue types ...
