First Windpipe Transplant a Success: Could Lead to Other Breakthroughs
http://www.ivanhoe.com/science/story/2010/01/665a.html
Published January 2010
Ivanhoe Broadcast News and American Institute of Physics

Summary: Claudia Castillo has two kids and was unable to even play with them due to the tuberculosis she had preventing her from breathing freely. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini fixed her problem with the first ever windpipe transplant. This took place at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain. Dr. Macchiarini was able to repair the windpipe with Castillo's on stem cells. First, he took a donor windpipe and cleaned all the cells off of it and then he took stem cells from Castillo's bone marrow and added them to the donor windpipe. To stop further growth of the donor windpipe, it was placed into the Clinic's bioreactor for 4 days. Castillo noticed a difference right away and she currently does not have to take any medication to assist in the healing process.

Connection: This amazing breakthrough relates to our unit on cells. Also, it is a great example of Mr. Mathieu's lecture on stem cells. A donor's stem cells have to closely match up with the recipients stem cells or the body will reject the organ. Since the cells were washed off the organ and Castillo's cells were added to it, the transplant worked seemlessly. This is very similiar to the case Mr. Mathieu told the class about when one identicle sibling had a problem with a kidney and his identicle twin donated a kidney to him. The reason the transplant worked was due to their similarity in stem cells because they were related.