Two More Adult Stem Cell Successes, Embryonic Still Zero

Two more adult stem cell research successes have hit the news in the last couple of days.

The first involves a "living bandage" used to repair knee injuries. From LifeSiteNews:

In the Bristol university experiment, cartilage-producing stem cells taken from 23 patients with knee injuries, were coaxed to grow and coat a sponge-like scaffold, made from hyaluronic acid - a compound that occurs naturally in cartilage. The scientists applied this cellular “bandage” to the inside of tears in knee cartilage in the lab.

After two weeks of growth, the cells and scaffold were inserted to fix tears of up to 11 square centimetres in the knee cartilage of the patients. The two halves of the tear grew back together. The team, led by Anthony Hollander, a professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering at Bristol University, told the New Scientist, “We found the cartilage matures well, even in patients with early osteoarthritis.”

The second involves the repair of a woman's trachea. From LifeNews:

Castillo, who has two children and lives in Spain now, had a severe collapse of her lung, according to an AP report, and she required regular hospital visits to clear her airways. The problems left her unable to care for her children.

Doctors considered removing her entire left lung, but Macchiarini proposed the windpipe transplant. Scientists at Italy's University of Padua prepared the transplant and doctors at the University of Bristol took adult stem cells from Castillo's bone marrow from her hip and used them to create cartilage and tissue that could cover the windpipe.

Castillo, now the first patient to receive a whole organ transplant using her own cells, has shown no signs of rejecting the transplant and does not require any immune-suppressing drugs that have significant side effects.

She said she is "very happy" with the results and can now care for her children and walk without running out of breath.

Below is a video from the BBC about the transplant.

Unlike the controversial embryonic stem cell research, adult stem cell therapy does not involve the destruction of human life. Stem cells from adult human beings are taken from that person's own body and used to stimulate growth of damaged tissue.

This brings the total of successful adult stem cell transplant therapies to somewhere around 80.

The number of successes for the life-destroying embryonic stem cell research: zero.

There is simply no reason--ethical or practical--to destroy human life in the pursuit of medical science.