2-year old born without windpipe has one grown from her own stem cells (1 Viewer)

[TheDeparted]

2-year-old girl gets windpipe made from stem cells

A 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.

Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a U.S. hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.

The stem cells came from Hannah's bone marrow, extracted with a special needle inserted into her hip bone. They were seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold, where it took less than a week for them to multiply and create a new windpipe.

The windpipe was implanted April 9 in a nine-hour procedure.

[...]

Holterman said Hannah will likely need a new windpipe in about five years, as she grows.

She breathes with help from a ventilator but no longer has a tube in her mouth that she'd lived with since shortly after birth, Holterman said. She's not yet able to eat normally, but doctors let her have her first taste ever of food — a few licks on a lollipop. Her father said she already has discriminating taste and prefers chocolate Korean lollipops to the American kind.

"I asked her, 'Is it good?'" he said, "and she immediately nodded her head."

Science.

 

[Brennan77]

Nicely done.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[superchuck500]

Awesome.

We recently had a daughter and decided to pay to have the stem cells collected and "banked." It was expensive but it's clearly revolutionary medicine - who knows what they'll be able to do in 5, 10, 15 years.

 

[efil4stnias]

Science.

rocks.

Amazing possibilities with stem cells. Proof positive.

 

[Suavecito8]

 

[redlandssaintsson]

WHAT!? Stem cells are evil!!! It says so in the Bible!....er...something.


But seriously, the fact that this is possible is awesome. The fact that there's any reason that people wouldn't want us to pursue nearly every means necessary to make these types of things common place is beyond me entirely.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

WHAT!? Stem cells are evil!!! It says so in the Bible!....er...something.


But seriously, the fact that this is possible is awesome. The fact that there's any reason that people wouldn't want us to pursue nearly every means necessary to make these types of things common place is beyond me entirely.

These are iPSCs (i.e., her own cells) not embryonic stem cells, which is where the religious/philosophical objections are.

iPSCs show more promise in terms of actual treatment, because you don't have the issue of host rejection But if we stop the embrynoic stem cell reseach, we won't know what signals induce the iPSCs to form the tissues of interest.

 

[redlandssaintsson]

These are iPSCs (i.e., her own cells) not embryonic stem cells, which is where the religious/philosophical objections are.

iPSCs show more promise in terms of actual treatment, because you don't have the issue of host rejection But if we stop the embrynoic stem cell reseach, we won't know what signals induce the iPSCs to form the tissues of interest.

And all that religious/philosophical stuff is fine. I even agree with the less extreme views...to a point. But prohibiting embryonic stem cell research will do nothing to stop abortions and ALSO do nothing to help anyone. But we need to be putting NASA Space Race type money into stem cell research and treatment. I mean, curing disease and deformity by growing your own body parts WITH your own body parts? That's freakin cool!

 

[Semper]

It's amazing and scary all at once.

 

[TheDeparted]

It's amazing and scary all at once.

You don't think bad guys are going to figure out how to exploit the technology, do you?

At the very least, people shouldn't have to worry as much about having their kidneys stolen in the future

 

[Redacted]

Awesome.

We recently had a daughter and decided to pay to have the stem cells collected and "banked." It was expensive but it's clearly revolutionary medicine - who knows what they'll be able to do in 5, 10, 15 years.

Stem cells will be kicking cancers *** in 15 years.... Or turn us all into zombies. Either way I'm interested.