Stem Cells Whistle up a Windpipe

The story involved a woman named Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old mother of two from Barcelona, Spain. Castillo's windpipe was badly damaged by long-term tuberculosis. Her left lung had collapsed and she faced the possibility of having the lung removed, a dangerous option that would have severely restricted her quality of life.
But then her doctors decided upon a different, pioneering approach to Claudia's problem: they grew a new windpipe using stem cells. The entire procedure, which included doctors working in three different countries - Spain, Italy and England - was almost too fantastic to believe.
First, the doctors got a windpipe from an organ donor. That windpipe was used as a kind of scaffold upon which the stem cells would be placed and where they would be manipulated to grow a new windpipe.
Of course, stem cell research has been a hot-button political topic for years because much of it has involved the use of embryonic stem cell tissue, which is typically derived from aborted fetuses. But in this procedure, doctors used adult stem cells to grow the new windpipe.
And here's the best part: the stem cells weren't just from any adult; they were from Claudia's own body. The doctors in England took a sample of Claudia's bone marrow from her hip, and after millions of cells had been produced, injected various chemicals to induce the cells to turn into highly specialized cells that would create the new windpipe grown on the scaffolding provided by the donated one.
All of which is very good news, and not just because it avoids the ethical and moral implications that accompany embryonic stem cells. The truly great benefit here is that the new windpipe in Claudia's throat contains her own DNA because it was constructed using her own stem cells. Thus, rejection by the body isn't an issue as it is in typical organ transplants.
By the time her story was published, in mid-November, Claudia was already home and, in her own words, "enjoying life and ... very happy that my illness has been cured."
While the early results are encouraging, the doctors and scientists involved cautioned that this is only a halting first step. But it's a promising step, and some of the doctors voiced real optimism, saying that this technique might even be adapted to other organs. And another said that while it's still years away, one day we may be able to produce organs in the laboratory using a patient's own stem cells, without the need of donor organs to use as templates.
So, as it stands, really significant advancement in growing new organs from stem cells that could cure many of our diseases is still well in the future, if it happens at all. But if does happen, this story - which was barely noticed amidst the political turmoil, economic upheaval and deadly natural disasters of 2008 - may end up being like the little ray of hope that flew out of the Pandora's box of 2008.