Decellularization in Russia
From Michael Batin, and machine-translated: "For the Foundation Science for Life Extension, the main outcome [for this past year] was the first Russian unique operation on transplantation of the trachea, grown from [the patient's own stem cells]. Operation using the method of Professor Paolo Macchiarini held in December in Research Center of Surgery named after Academician BV Petrovsky, RAMS (Moscow). In order to bring this technique to Russia, the Foundation has worked a half years. We fully fund the project and organize the interaction of all participants - RAMS RNTSH, Clinics Karredzhi University of Florence, pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers of biomaterials. Total project costs amounted to around 250 thousand euros. ... Patient was a 26-year-old girl. In 2006, she was hit by a car, she was very seriously injured, survived clinical death, a few months has been in a coma. Breathe on their own she could not ... Now the patient before discharge - she can speak much better breathing, can walk and perform physical activity. ... This operation - the beginning of the introduction into clinical practice of regenerative medicine technologies, which opens up broad prospects for the treatment of serious illnesses associated with the loss of vital organs and tissues, and allows scientific and clinical institutions of Russia to enter the International Consortium for Regenerative Medicine." The process used here is decellularization, in which a donor trachea is stripped of its cells, leaving only the structure of the extracellular matrix. That is then repopulated with the patient's own cells, which avoids the normal issues of transplant rejection.