Parts . . .

Physicians have succeeded in making an artificial trachea for a woman using her own stem cells and some donor cartilage.

PARIS — Physicians at four European universities have successfully transplanted a human windpipe, using stem cells from the recipient’s own bone marrow to reline a donor trachea and prevent its rejection by her immune system, according to an article in the British medical journal The Lancet.

This is an early step in the development of artificial organs based on one's own cells, but its apparent success guarantees that future efforts will be redoubled. The holy grail for such efforts is the creation of whole organs: artificial pancreas, heart, kidney, liver, and lungs. These will take a while, but some version might appear in the next decade, and in a couple or three decades, rich people might start stockpiling handy replacement parts.

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