First transplant of a fully synthetic organ carried out

By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent | The Telegraph

Surgeons have carried out the world's first transplant of a fully synthetic organ, a windpipe created using the patient's own stem cells and a fully artificial scaffold

The operation was performed on a 36-year-old cancer patient a month ago at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden.

In March last year a 10-year-old British boy received a windpipe that had been impregnated with his own stem cells, which meant he did not have to take powerful immuno-suppressant drugs. However, it used a trachea, or windpipe, originally taken from a 30-year-old woman.

This new technique does not need a donor: it was created from scratch with the help of technology from University College London.

Scientists there were given three-dimensional CT scans of the windpipe of patient Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a geology student from Eritrea who is currently studying for his PhD in Iceland.

From the scans, Prof Alex Seifalian and colleagues created a glass mould of Mr Beyene's windpipe and his two main bronchial tubes.

The Y-shaped structure was then coated in a special polymer containing millions of tiny holes.

It was then flown to Sweden where it was "seeded" with stem cells from Mr Beyene's bone marrow, under the eye of the Spanish surgeon, Prof Paolo Macchiarini.

This was placed in a bioreactor for two days to allow the stem cells to take root. Cells to line the replacement windpipe were also used, taken from the patient's nose.

It took Prof Macchiarini 12 hours to perform the operation, first removing the tumour and the diseased windpipe and then installing the replacement.

He has previously undertaken 10 windpipe operations, including the first of a tissue-engineered trachea, on a 30-year-old Spanish woman called Claudia Costillo in 2008.

However, this is the first not to require a donor organ.

Prof Paolo Macchiarini said: "Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week.

"This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation."

Professor Seifalian described it as "an important milestone for regenerative medicine".

He said: "Professor Macchiarini has previously performed successful transplants of tissue engineered tracheas, but on those occasions the tracheas used were taken from organ donors and then reseeded with the patient’s own stem cells.

"What makes this procedure different is it’s the first time that a wholly tissue engineered synthetic windpipe has been made and successfully transplanted, making it an important milestone for regenerative medicine.

"We expect there to be many more exciting applications for the novel polymers we have developed."

Mr Beyene needed a new windpipe because he had an inoperable, cancerous tumour the size of a golf ball that was obstructing his breathing.

A month after the operation, he is doing well. He is now hoping to get home to visit his wife and family and meet his three-month old child, whom he has never seen.