Two-year-old Hannah Warren was born without a windpipe and has been unable to talk, swallow, or eat on her own. Her only hope was an artificial windpipe; an experimental device. Her medical team custom-designed a new windpipe using tiny plastic fibers. It was then bathed in stem cells taken from Hannah's bone marrow to promote tissue growth. Since the device is made from her own cells, there is little danger of Hannah's body rejecting it. What makes this technology so exciting is the promise of being able to manufacture organs in a matter of weeks without waiting for a donor.Three weeks after the surgery, she's active and able to even taste her first lollipop. Her doctors believe in a few months, she will be able to go home for the first time and may even be able to talk.
Click here to watch Hanna's story and learn about groundbreaking regenerative medicine procedure