Artificial Windpipe Transplanted For First Time

Surgeons have successfully transplanted the world's first artificial windpipe into a person.

This marks the first time a synthetic organ has been transplanted into a person, BBC News reported.

The recipient of the artificial windpipe is 36-year-old Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, an African geology student studying in Iceland. He underwent the surgery a month ago and will be discharged from the hospital on Friday, USA Today reported.

The artificial windpipe, or trachea, was created out of a special plastic polymer in a lab and modeled using 3D scans from Beyene, and then coated with his own stem cells, USA Today reported.

The windpipe was created quickly -- in just two days -- because Beyene needed an emergency transplant to survive an inoperable tumor, BBC News reported.

Surgeons took 12 hours to completely remove Beyene's windpipe and replace it with the synthetic one, according to BBC News. Doctors said it's unlikely that Beyene will reject the organ because it possesses his own cells.

The surgery, which took place in Sweden, was conducted by doctors there in collaboration with U.S. and London surgeons.

Lead surgeon Paolo Macchiaraini, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, had previously done a tissue-engineered windpipe transplant on a woman in 2008, but that transplant had required a donor, according to NPR. For that surgery, doctors started with a donated trachea and then grew stem cells from the woman onto the trachea.