Hannah’s Growing Windpipe

In April of this year a two year-old girl was given a windpipe made from her own stem cells.  Hannah Warren, who unfortunately died on Saturday, was the youngest person to receive this experimental treatment.

Hannah’s windpipe was crafted from her bone marrow cells and were “seeded in a lab onto a plastic scaffold,” (Credit) and multiplied to create a functional windpipe. The windpipe was implanted on April 9th, but Hannah couldn’t “overcome additional health issues that were identified as her care progressed,” the hospital said in a statement.

Hannah was born in South Korea to Darryl Warren, a Canadian teaching English in South Korea, and his wife Young-Mi. She was born without a trachea which meant she couldn’t eat, breathe or speak without help.  She was transferred to Illinois after a pediatric surgeon travelling through Korea on a business trip connected them with Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, the surgeon who developed the technique.

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