As any other science, medicine is also constantly changing, evolving, improving for the benefit of patients worldwide. One of the most major achievements of modern Western medicine is undoubtedly the transplant. Transplant procedures have been done for quite some time, yet they weren’t as successful at first as they are today. In the beginning, the patients didn’t survive the surgeries. As time went by, the patients did survive the transplant operation yet their body rejected the organs and they died afterwards. After immunosuppressors were officially approved, transplants became much more common procedures. However, once they became more widespread, the demand for organs raised significantly and today we find ourselves with a shortage of organs and a growing black market dedicated to organ trafficking.

Given the full-fledged hunt for viable, matching organs, stem cell research has become increasingly popular. Stem cells collected from embryos or the umbilical cord are “blank” genes, and thus they can be used to basically “build” a number of organs or other appendices. Recently, scientists from four of Europe’s top universities have managed to successfully complete a human windpipe transplant. The transplant was achieved by using stem cells, collected from the recipient’s own bone marrow. They relined the trachea and the body’s rejection of the organ was stopped. 

This operation represents a breakthrough in medicine, as it was the first ever operation than involved stem cells in a transplant involving airwaves. The stem cells collected from the bone marrow are similar to the embryonic ones in the sense that they too can be transformed into different tissue types.