KARACHI: “In future, you might be able to buy body parts from a shop [given the fast pace of research and development in the field of bioengineering],” said Dr Faiz Bhora, director of Thoracic Surgical Oncology and Thoracic Surgery Research at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals, New York, during his lecture at Aga Khan University (AKU) on Friday.

Dr Bhora, also co-director of the Mount Sinai Health System’s Airway Centre of New York and an alumnus of the Aga Khan University, has been in the media lately for his research team’s efforts in creating the ‘world’s first’ bio-printed windpipe using stem cell cultures.

“The engineered windpipe can grow just like a transplanted organ in a patient who receives it with the advantage of 100pc compatibility.”

Starting off his presentation on “Thoracic surgery innovations: from robotics to bioengineering”, Dr Bhora said that lung cancer caused 1.4 million deaths worldwide and 200,000 deaths in the US each year. He citing data from the Pakistan Health Survey 1999 said that tobacco killed 274 Pakistanis everyday.

“About 5,000 Pakistanis are admitted to hospitals everyday because of tobacco use. Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death in both men and women. It kills more people than next four cancers combined (breast, colon, pancreatic and prostate),” he told the audience.

The stage of the disease, he said, continued to be the most important factor in guiding therapy and prognosis. Many lung and airway conditions required a tracheotomy (a painful procedure in which a tube is inserted into the neck to allow the patient to breath but he or she still cannot speak and are constantly at risk of infection), he said while explaining the need for research on tracheal regeneration.

On the question whether repair of the trachea is possible by using biologic membranes and stem cells, he said that the windpipe was not a bone (but cartilage) that could more easily be replaced by an implant 3D printed out of different bio-compatible resins. To exclude chances of rejection, it had to be made with patient’s own stem cells.

Defining the stem cells, he said that they were a class of undifferentiated cells that were able to differentiate into specialised cell types. The multi-potent stem cells (a kind of stem cells), he said, had the potential to transform into most type of adult cells.

He also dealt with the current status of bio-printing, the relevant procedure and explained how 3D printing worked.

Showing different slides, Dr Bohra said that the procedure was tested on a baby pig that had so far shown promising results; it appeared that the artificial trachea was able to keep up with the growth and, if confirmed, that would be a good indication of the potential that this type of treatment would have in paediatric care.

“That we can bioengineer a human trachea with 3D-printing using patients’ own stem cells has not happened yet, but we are moving towards that direction,” he concluded.

The lecture was followed by a question-answer session.