Stem cells used to make windpipe

Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own bone marrow’s stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs.

The case of tuberculosis patient Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian living in Barcelona, was published online today in the medical journal the Lancet.

Scientists and doctors in Italy and Britain stripped the cells off a donor windpipe, leaving only a tube of connective tissue, and produced millions of cartilage and tissue cells from Castillo’s marrow to cover it. Once they were in place, the trachea was transplanted into Castillo in June.