Pioneering Stem Cell Surgery Announced - with no thanks to mr. bu$h*

[spanone]

PARIS -- Physicians at four European universities have completed what they say is the first successful transplant of a human windpipe using a patient’s own stem cells to fashion an organ and prevent its rejection by her immune system, according to an article in the British medical journal The Lancet. One of the physicians said the surgery could herald a “new age in surgical care.”

The transplant operation was performed on the patient, Claudia Castillo, in June in Barcelona, Spain, to alleviate an acute shortage of breath caused by a failing airway following severe tuberculosis. It followed weeks of preparation carried out at the universities of Barcelona, Spain, Bristol, England and Padua and Milan in Italy.

News of the procedure coincided with speculation that President-elect Barack Obama may reverse the Bush Administration’s restrictions on stem cell research, which has been contentious in some European countries, too. Anthony Hollander, a professor at Bristol University, said ethical concerns relating to embryonic stem cell research had not surfaced in the latest procedure because it had used only the patient’s own stem cells. “This was not embryonic stem cell research,” he said in a telephone interview.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/research/20stemcell.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

[Lex]

1. Will be glad when cutting edge medical research returns to the US.

Glad it is moving forward in other parts of the world.

[spanone]

2. it's going on here but with no federal help...it's all private enterprise

[Lex]

3. I know Michelle Obama's father had MS and so I bet

stem cell research going forward will have a personal meaning for her to see this kind of research funded and supported again.