A patient will be discharged from a hospital in Sweden on Friday after his cancerous windpipe was removed and replaced by the world’s first artificial trachea, made of his own stem cells grown on a man-made plastic matrix.

“This is the first permanent artificial organ ever,” says Paolo Macchiarini, professor of regenerative surgery at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, who led an international team of researchers.

Just as remarkable as the man-made windpipe, he says, is how quickly it was produced. Collaborators →

Included in the Mention | Alexander Graham Bell, Garfield & The Sunlight Telephone., click here to check it out!