Professor Massimo Caputo, an Italian cardiac surgeon and researcher at the Bristol Heart Institute who was a pioneer in the use of stem cells and tissue engineering for the treatment of congenital heart problems, made the world's first transplant of allogeneic cord stem cells for a baby with a congenital heart defect. Finley, a Corsham infant born with transposition of the great arteries, a serious congenital cardiac ailment in which the pulmonary artery and aorta originate from the "wrong" ventricle owing to a mistake during the development of the heart, received the first open-heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children on his fourth day of life. After weeks of medicine and intensive care, Professor Caputo's new procedure, which used cord stem cells, was tried. "Finley could not be taken off of the drugs and support that kept him alive in intensive care, says the professor, so we suggested to the mother, out of compassion, that she use allogeneic stem cells from the umbilical cord, which we had developed with the Genetic and Cell Therapy Center of the Royal Free Hospital in London. The cells were injected right into the part of the heart that was hurting and not working right, as well as onto the autologous pericardium patch, which was used to help the cells spread. In this situation, the safest stem cells to use are those from the umbilical cord. These cells have a very low rate of rejection and a high ability to divide. They also settle well and can repair the blood flow to damaged heart tissue. This last-ditch effort to help Finley turned out to be his only chance of survival".
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