--- title: Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea, Grown in the Lab description: For the first time, a patient has been successfully transplanted with an artificial trachea, created from scratch in a lab. The procedure required the coordinated... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2011-07-08T20:09:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T10:56:07.804Z article:section: Health og:title: Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea, Grown in the Lab og:description: For the first time, a patient has been successfully transplanted with an artificial trachea, created from scratch in a lab. The procedure required the coordinated... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a491141be429e06/698a9460c9e941d11f123b34/image.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: image og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea, Grown in the Lab twitter:description: For the first time, a patient has been successfully transplanted with an artificial trachea, created from scratch in a lab. The procedure required the coordinated... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a491141be429e06/698a9460c9e941d11f123b34/image.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Jul 8, 2011 8:09 PM UTC  Courtesy Harvard Bioscience by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Jul 8, 2011 8:09 PM UTC For the first time, a patient has been successfully transplanted with an artificial trachea, created from scratch in a lab. The procedure required the coordinated efforts of scientific teams in London, Massachusetts and Stockholm, Sweden, where the windpipe was surgically implanted.more The patient, Andemarian Telesenbet Beyene, a 36-year-old geology student from Eritrea, had been suffering from late-stage tracheal cancer. A rare, aggressive tumor was blocking his windpipe making it hard for him to breath. Diagnosed in 2008, Beyene had failed every conventional treatment including chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. He was running out of time, so rather than wait for a donor trachea for transplantation, his doctors suggested growing his own in the lab. **MORE:** [Could Stem-Cell Transplants Help the Japanese Nuclear Workers?](http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/31/could-stem-cell-transplants-help-japanese-nuclear-workers/) This is not the first time a lab-engineered trachea has been used for transplantation. But in previous cases, the [tracheas were built with donor organs](http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2808%2961598-6/abstract). The donated tracheas were stripped of the donors’ cells — leaving only the cartilage scaffold — and then reseeded with stem cells derived from the recipients’ own bone marrow. Once the stem cells took hold and grew on the scaffold, the tracheas could be transplanted into the patient without fear of rejection. In Beyene’s case, doctors had to work faster, building a fresh organ, starting with an artificial scaffold in the lab. [Reported](http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/07/trachea.transplant/index.html?iref=allsearch) CNN: --- > “” --- The polymer scaffold was made by Alexander Seifalian at University College London. The bioreactor that would hold the trachea and incubate it with Beyene’s stem cells was created by Harvard Bioscience, near Boston. The scaffold and bioreactor were then shipped to Stockholm, where the solution containing the patient’s stem cells was added. The final product was days in the making, versus the months it could have taken to locate a donor organ. The artificial trachea was transplanted on June 9 in a 12-hour surgery led by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, a pioneer in engineered trachea transplantation, at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. The patient appears to have accepted the new organ well, doctors said. “It’s working like a normal windpipe,” Macchiarini [told](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/08/137701848/cancer-patient-gets-first-totally-artificial-windpipe?ps=sh%5Fsthdl) NPR’s Shots blog. “He’s able to cough. He’s able to expel his secretions. He’s breathing normally. He has the sensation he’s breathing.” **MORE:** [FDA Approves Second Trial of Stem-Cell Therapy](http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/22/fda-approves-second-trial-of-stem-cell-therapy/) [Reported](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/08/137701848/cancer-patient-gets-first-totally-artificial-windpipe?ps=sh%5Fsthdl) Shots: --- > “” --- The Stockholm transplant marks another milestone for the field of regenerative medicine. In March, scientists at Wake Forest University reported that they had [created artificial urethras in the lab](http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/08/scientistis-grow-a-new-urethra-and-possibly-many-other-human-organs-in-the-lab/) and successfully transplanted them into five boys who had tissue damage. _Meredith Melnick is a reporter at_ TIME_. Find her on Twitter at_ [_@MeredithCM_](http://twitter.com/#%21/MeredithCM)_. You can also continue the discussion on_ TIME’s[_Facebook page_](http://www.facebook.com/time) _and on Twitter at_ [_@TIME_](http://twitter.com/#%21/TIME)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/"},"headline":"Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea","datePublished":"2011-07-08T20:09:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T10:56:07.804Z","description":"For the first time, a patient has been successfully transplanted with an artificial trachea, created from scratch in a lab. The procedure required the coordinated...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a491141be429e06/698a9460c9e941d11f123b34/image.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4a491141be429e06/698a9460c9e941d11f123b34/image.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"image","caption":"","creditText":"Courtesy Harvard Bioscience","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7141073/cancer-patient-gets-worlds-first-artificial-trachea/","name":"Cancer Patient Gets World's First Artificial Trachea"}}]}] ```