April 11, 2016
(Daily Mail) – A similar situation exists in Belgium where doctor-assisted deaths were legalised at much the same time. Last year, the number of people to die via euthanasia in that country went past 2,000 for the first time, meaning … Read More
April 11, 2016
(U.S. News & World Report) – A common fungus caused the complication that forced Cleveland Clinic doctors to remove a transplanted uterus from a 26-year-old woman just two weeks after the groundbreaking procedure was performed, hospital officials said Friday. “Preliminary … Read More
April 8, 2016
(Los Angeles Times) – Thirty years ago Paul Simon immortalized one of the first animal-human transplants with the lyrics, “These are the days of miracle and wonder.… Medicine is magical and magical is art. Thinking of the boy in the … Read More
April 5, 2016
(The Washington Post) – You might not think that you should be excited about pig hearts being stitched into baboon circulatory systems, but boy are you wrong. Scientists have announced a new record for the survival of these Frankenhearts, and … Read More
April 1, 2016
(Daily Mail) – Doctors should have the right to take organs from patients who want to die so they can be used in transplant surgery, a prominent medical researcher has suggested. Those who want to be killed should be sedated … Read More
March 31, 2016
(TIME) – The first U.S. liver and kidney transplants from a donor with HIV were completed at Johns Hopkins Medicine. This marks the first ever HIV-to-HIV liver transplant, and the first kidney transplant in the United States. HIV-positive kidney transplants … Read More
March 25, 2016
(Vox) – Last month, Johns Hopkins selected the first wounded soldier to undergo a penis transplant in the US. The young man, whose name hasn’t been made public, lost most of his penis in an explosion overseas. According to the … Read More
March 24, 2016
(Medscape) – Most US voters view living kidney donations positively, according to a telephone survey, and most also said they would be motivated toward such a donation if they received $50,000 in compensation. A quantitative survey of 1011 registered US … Read More
March 22, 2016
(New Scientist) – Is this the coolest solution to our donor-organ shortage? Researchers have discovered a way of freezing embryonic animal kidneys so that they can later be warmed up and grown into full-size organs without the risk of rejection … Read More
March 21, 2016
(Medical Xpress) – For years, one of the largest obstacles facing the field of regenerative medicine – the science of growing new human parts from scratch – was the need to create a circulatory system to support new tissues and … Read More
March 18, 2016
(UPI) – Doctors at two universities will start transplanting kidneys this spring from donors with hepatitis C to recipients who do not have the infection, a break with 25 years of medical practice. Researchers and doctors at the Johns Hopkins … Read More
March 18, 2016
(Medical Xpress) – Recently discovered biomarkers may provide valuable new approaches to monitoring immunosuppressive drug therapy in organ transplant recipients—with the potential for individualized therapy to reduce organ rejection and minimize side effects, according to a special article in the … Read More
March 17, 2016
(Los Angeles Times) – Despite their slovenly habits in agricultural settings, pigs raised in biomedical labs are clean enough that many humans would welcome —indeed, do welcome — the use of their tissue for life-saving transplants. Transplanted heart valves routinely come from … Read More
March 17, 2016
(Gizmag) – An engineered cardiac patch has been created that incorporates human cells with flexible electronics and a nanocomposite structure to not only replace damaged heart tissue, but also provide remote monitoring, electrical stimulation, and the release of medication on … Read More
March 14, 2016
(Vox) – I asked medical ethicists and doctors (including one of the authors of the global ethical guidelines for uterine transplants) for their opinion. They all pointed out that the uterine transplant is a supremely risky operation — but agreed … Read More
March 11, 2016
(Reuters) – Transplanting a mismatched kidney from a living donor may lower the risk of death more than not doing a transplant at all, according to a new study that could open the door to more operations. A long-term study … Read More
March 10, 2016
(Medical Xpress) – On March 9, 1981, just minutes past midnight, Mary Gohlke, a 45-year-old Arizona woman dying of primary pulmonary hypertension, was wheeled into a Stanford Hospital operating room for a heart-lung transplant surgery that would become a medical … Read More
March 9, 2016
(STAT News) – Yet the wholly understandable desire to bear a child does not justify the significant risks to mother and fetus posed by uterine transplants, not to mention the enormous financial cost. Safer, less costly, and more certain ways … Read More
March 9, 2016
(Washington Post) – The woman who received the first uterus transplant performed in the United States suffered a sudden complication that forced surgeons to remove the organ, the Cleveland Clinic announced Wednesday. Just two days after she was introduced to … Read More
March 9, 2016
Developing World Bioethics (vol. 16, no. 1, 2016) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “Reviewing HIV-Related Research in Emerging Economies: The Role of Government Reviewing Agencies” by Patrina Sexton, et al. “Managing Ethical Challenges to Mental Health Research in … Read More
March 8, 2016
(Washington Post) – Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic Monday described the first uterus transplant in the United States, a procedure that involved removing the organ from a deceased donor and implanting it in a 26-year-old woman, who appeared with her … Read More
March 4, 2016
(Muscular Dystrophy News) – The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Cell Reports, compared the factors that both types of stem cells secreted, and noticed that many of the substances fetal cells produced were no longer present in … Read More
March 4, 2016
(STAT) – Could fetal tissue research be the key to understanding the effects of the Zika virus? That was the provocative suggestion at a House hearing Wednesday about the merits of research of fetal tissue procured from abortions — a topic … Read More
March 4, 2016
(Chicago Tribune) – Republicans on the special House panel investigating fetal tissue procurement and research practices aggressively questioned the morality and necessity of that research in the panel’s first hearing Wednesday, while Democrats sought to portray the probe as a … Read More
March 3, 2016
(Managed Care Magazine) – As an additional safety measure against the emerging Zika virus outbreak, the FDA has issued new guidance to reduce the potential risk of Zika virus transmission from human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products (HCT/Ps). … Read More
