In what could be a major breakthrough for the use of tissue engineered organs, doctors from four European universities report replacing portions of a woman’s trachea (windpipe) with a new trachea made with the woman’s own stem cells. The technique will allow the woman, named Claudia Castillo, to avoid a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs and may also mark a turning point in the quest to grow new organs for use in transplants.

The procedure involved obtaining a donor trachea from a deceased patient, then used a special technique to strip away all the living, cellular material from it leaving behind only a scaffold of non-living connective tissue. The doctors used a sample of Castillo’s bone marrow to obtain adult stem cells then coaxed them to become cartilage-producing cells called chondrocytes. These cells were then used to seed the donor trachea on the outside, allowing the cells to migrate into the donor tissue and take up residence. The researchers used a similar process in order to line the inside of the donor trachea with epithelial cells.

Castillo elected to receive the transplant after a case of tuberculosis destroyed part of her trachea and one of the tubes that connect it to the lungs (bronchus), making it difficult for her to breathe and leaving her prone to infections. Her only other option was to have her lung removed, which would significantly reduce her respiratory capacity. Now, four months after the transplant, the 30 year old patient has near normal respiratory function and is showing no signs of rejecting the transplant.

The doctors believe the same technique might be used to engineer other hollow organs such as the intestine, bladder, or reproductive tract. If so, science will be that much closer to achieving the holy grail of tissue engineering: growing entire new organs in the lab.

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_{Photo: NASA Kennedy Space Center (NASA-KSC)}