Hes clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he cant contain himself. Even so, it wasnt until 2016 that the Karolinska Institute declined to renew his contract. This guy mutilated people., Between 2011 and 2014, Macchiarini implanted artificial windpipes in at least eight patients in Sweden, the United States, and Russia. In part, this is because the field of windpipe repair is a niche area. Kentucky Now his reputation lies in tatters. Minnesota Ms. Seins trachea before, left, and her new transplanted trachea. When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. For the respect of privacy, his wifes identity is not revealed on the internet. He could see no real evidence that the windpipe scaffolds were becoming living, functioning airways in which case, they were destined to fail. Not only that, they later covered it up.. Nor did they impress the institutes ethics council when Delaere lodged a formal complaint. I didnt want the fairy tale to end., Alexander also hired a private investigator, a former Pennsylvania State Police detective named Frank Murphy. Look out for a message in your inbox in. Thailand Alexander started a problem with the specialist at this time. 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Benita was loyal to and supported Paolo when his professional life took a dark turn. Thereafter it was all over the news. (The big exception is blood stem cell transplantation, which has been saving the lives of people with leukemia and other cancers of the blood for decades.). The Macchiarini scandal claimed many of his powerful friends. The other side is flat and mobile to move air to the lungs. 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KI commissioned surgeon Bengt Gerdin, a professor emeritus at Uppsala University, to investigate the issue. In fact, the surgeon was still married to his wife of nearly 30 years. Macchiarini is known for his research fraud and manipulative behavior. In September, a Swedish prosecutor indicted him on aggravated assault charges related to three trachea transplants. Paolo, a visiting researcher at the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, had shot to fame as the only doctor in the world who was able to use biological and synthetic scaffolds bathed in the patients' own stem cells for trachea transplants. But it did not work, and a court in Sweden has found him criminally liable for the harm inflicted on a patient. None have been forced to hold full and independent inquiries. George Floyd On Friday Mr. Hurtig declined to comment on Paolos private affairs.. Brazilian MMA fighters We have, for example, a growing list of scientific celebrities who have committed major stem cell fraud. From that moment on, she made a proposal to Paolo Macchiarini, and Dateline planned to publish the story. I could feel it in my lungs.. The district court in Solna today found Paolo Macchiarini not guilty on other charges, including aggravated assault, relating to three patients he treated while working for the famed Karolinska Institute (KI). Only three are still alive as of September 2020. In January 2016, Macchiarini received an extraordinary double dose of bad press. Guided by a high-powered microscope, he used surgical thread half the diameter of a human hair. As Grinnemo recalls, it nearly destroyed his career: I didnt receive any new grants. No, he was just caring for his patients who were, one and all, facing certain death with no other treatment options available and no time to waste. Las Vegas Gerdins report, released in May 2015, concluded Macchiarini was guilty of misconduct, but university administrators rejected that conclusion 3 months later, arguing Macchinarini and his co-authors had satisfactorily countered the issues Gerdin raised. The operations were hailed at the time as a breakthrough in regenerative medicine, although some observers remained skeptical. At the time, Macchiarini was working at Swedens Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine every year. Since this was radically new, Macchiarini and his colleagues should have tested it on animals first. And difficult to jump off. My wife was the one who said, If you truly believe that people are dying from this and that you could maybe make a difference, you cant just fold up and go home, he said. But that, and the fact that he had multiple cell phones for different countries, she chalked up to his demanding job and constant international travel. Stem cell brain implants could 'slow ageing and extend life', study shows, offering to treat just about any ailment you can name, Pregnant women's stem cells could treat osteoporosis, say scientists. Brazil But according to reports, Paolo cheated on his Emanuela Pecchia. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. This is how NBCs Meredith Vieira put it in her documentary about Macchiarini, appropriately called A Leap of Faith: Just imagine a world where any injured or diseased organ or body part you have is simply replaced by a new artificial one, literally manmade in the lab, just for you. This marvelous world was now within reach, thanks to Macchiarini. Photographs document Ms. Seins trachea transformation: Her old windpipe looks raw and red, her new one smooth as porcelain. Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarinis engineered airways. Which left a big, burning question in the air: if Macchiarini was a pathological liar in matters of love, what about his medical research? She says it may mean the judges thought he and the patients believed time was short and options were few. The couple has been married for 30 years now. And because it was built from Castillos own cells, she didnt need to be on any risky immunosuppressant drugs. Disgraced Italian surgeon convicted of criminal harm to stem cell patient. Guided by several mentors, he delved into research and animal experiments, developing a transplant approach. Every patient had another, nonlethal option, Pierre Delaere, a trachea expert at KU Leuven and an early critic of Macchiarini, said in an email to Science. Macchiarini was also charged with but acquitted of assault charges related to the deaths of two more of his artificial windpipe patients, an Eritrean man named Andemariam Beyene and an American man named Christopher Lyles, according to BBC News. It is thus likely she has since passed away. At first, they just connected as friends. The couple had traveled extensively, but there were a They shared a happy relationship. He hopes the immunosuppressant drugs, which can create health risks, can be reduced or even stopped if the entire graft becomes filled with Sonias cells.. Called Experimenten (The Experiments), it argued convincingly that Macchiarinis artificial windpipes were not the life-saving wonders wed all been led to believe. Benita decided to get in touch with private investigator Frank Murphy. Plus: NYC sixth-grader struck and killed by stray bullet; New Hampshire police search for person of interest in double homicide; Fyre Festival fraudster released early from prison; and manhunt continues for escaped Texas prisoner. The apparent success of Ms. Seins operation is also notable because the trachea field has been rocked for years by a sensational scandal. Born in 1984, Zhadyra Iglikova suffered from tracheostomy following a car accident. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. By the time the program aired, in mid-2014, the couple were planning their marriage. It is fitting that Macchiarinis career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. She received another implant at the University College Hospital in London in 2011, after which she was able to be discharged. The fact that he could keep all the details straight and compartmentalize these different lives and lies is really amazing.. The court ruling Thursday was in a case involving a Turkish woman named Yesim Cetir, who was the longest surviving of his patients at Karolinska. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. We now know that wasnt true. However, Swedish TV reporters also decided to take a close look at Macchiarinis work. Theres a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.. Michigan The nine-centimeter transplant replaced all but two centimeters of her trachea. A good example is the NBC documentary A Leap of Faith. Wasnt something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? The plastic trachea that Yesim Cetir received disfigured her and made her last three years in life basically like torture, Bosse Lindquist, the documentarian behind the Swedish TV series The Experiment, told the Times. On May 13, Alexander left her job. Today, Ms. Sein, 56, dances and plays tag with her grandchildren and plans to resume working, possibly as an acupuncturist. I Googled trachea transplant and Dr. Genden popped up. In other countries, more of Macchiarinis patients died after receiving one of his artificial windpipes. Benita Alexander and Paolo Macchiarini [Investigation Discovery]. According to Pierre Delaere, a professor of respiratory surgery at KU Leuven, Belgium, Macchiarinis experiments were bound to end badly. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. No one is more powerless than a patient with a disease, said Dr. Gerdin. In the She spent more than three years in intensive care and endured 200 surgical procedures, theTimes reports. He reportedly lied on his CV and research papers to trick patients, causing almost all those who received his inventive trachea transplants (using their own bone marrow cells for organ functionality) to lose their lives. Ms. Sein speaking with Dr. Eric M. Genden Sr., left, who developed the pioneering procedure, and Dr. Sander S. Florman, director of Mount Sinais Transplantation Institute. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against him for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the. California But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. Some answers have emerged from the official inquiries into the Karolinska Institute and the Karolinska University hospital. Heres this handsome Italian surgeon at the finest institution in the world, the Karolinska, and hes everything Im not: Hes got a beautiful head of hair, he drives a motorcycle, hes got an accent, hes incredibly charismatic and dynamic, Dr. Genden said. But, we now know that the success of this operation was a lie, and the complications she suffered because of it were kept under wraps for a really long time. Benita said that, if she can take any lessons away from what happened to her, she hopes that her experience will help others. Was he conning his patients, his colleagues and the scientific community? Benita Alexander wearing a wig as she tracked down Paolo in Barcelona [Investigation Discovery]. The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. After Macchiarini fitted Cetir with one of his artificial windpipes in 2012, her condition worsened. Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. Benita Alexander had no way of knowing that, by the end of her love story, her heart would be broken and many of Paolos patients who received the miracle transplants would be dead. Anyone can read what you share. If she talked for over five minutes, she had to stop because I couldnt breathe.. But the judges decided that, because the initial prognoses for Andemariam and Lyles were so grim without surgery, Macchiarini could not be held criminally responsible in those cases. 2nd Impeachment Trial: What this could mean for Trump, Presidential transition of power: Examined, How Donald Trump spent his last days as president, How Joe Biden's inauguration will be different from previous years, Trump challenges the vote and takes legal action, 2020s DNC and RNC are different than any before, Power Trip: Those Who Seek Power and Those Who Chase Them, Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of the Boy Scouts, Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, The Orphans of COVID: America's Hidden Toll, X / o n e r a t e d - The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. I dont want to live like this, she concluded. Florida A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. They should be. It would be a star-studded event. (The patient who survived had the implant removed.). But as the big day approached, Alexander saw these plans unravel, and finally realised that her lover had lied about almost everything. The couple set a date: July 11, 2015. He says, Ive created this bioreactor and its stem cells and it makes tracheas. And its huge., Dr. Genden said that when he and colleagues questioned Dr. Macchiarini at a conference early on, in his bigger-than-life way he says, This is ridiculous, you dont know what youre talking about, it functions beautifully., Dr. Genden thought his work had become obsolete, so you basically shut down the lab, he said. It won Dr. Macchiarini international news coverage and cemented his place as a celebrity scientist. Stem-cell scientist Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was accused of wrongdoing during operations on three people between 2011 and 2014. The 18-hour procedure, conceived and led by Dr. Eric M. Genden Sr., chairman of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, is a milestone because unlike kidneys, hearts and lungs the trachea has defied decades of transplantation attempts. Macchiarini, they claimed, wasnt really doing clinical research. This went on for three years until, just recently, Grinnemo was cleared of all wrongdoing. LONDON It sounded like real-life science fiction a 3-D printed organ, a groundbreaking artificial windpipe, built in a laboratory and made to order. Paolo Macchiarini is exposed Reality struck Alexander's fantasy romance eight weeks before she was supposed to marry Macchiarini in 2015, when she received an email from a colleague with the subject line saying, "The Pope." The case is pending. He was eventually dismissed from Karolinska. Almost immediately after she was fitted with a synthetic trachea in August 2012, Ms. Cetirs condition began to rapidly deteriorate, according to the courts written judgment. Benita was also growing increasingly concerned, because she had not yet been introduced to Paolo's children or even seen where she was meant to live with him in Barcelona. Unfortunately, due to complications, she passed away either around Christmas of that year or in the first few months of 2009. Powered by WordPress.com VIP. Thats what our experience of medical research leads us to suspect. In 2011, Dr. Macchiarini, a renowned leader in the field of regenerative medicine, took the medical world by storm when he built and implanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe. Gretchen Vogel is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany. Unfortunately, the scandal is much bigger than Karolinska, which accounts for only three of the patients who have received Macchiarinis regenerating windpipes. Jakarta Alexander said that Macchiarini told her he was still married to his wife because they were Catholic but were separated. Massachusetts In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. Paolo was in the house, but he was not alone after Benita's friends were asked to leave, they noticed a blonde woman coming out of the house, with two young children. Records show that even with his implant failing, Andemariam was able to complete his Ph.D. before his demise in January 2013. 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Any replacement trachea must be rigid or itll collapse like a straw in a McDonalds milkshake, Dr. Genden said. In the first couple of years at Karolinska, he put plastic airways into three patients. Virginia So, as per the last reports, he is alive and well today. Its actually meaningless for him, Gerdin says. Prosecutors asked for a five-year prison sentence for Macchiarinis liability in Cetirs bodily injury, but a Swedish court instead gave him a suspended sentence this June, deciding that he hadnt intended to cause the patients harm, according to BBC News. As it turned out, Macchiarinis patients werent all at deaths door at the time he treated them. Instead of stripping the cells from donor windpipes, Macchiarini had plastic scaffolds made to order. Scientists can also suffer from false hope. Its fascinating to rewatch as a lesson on how not to report on medical science. She had already spent $10,000 on engraved invitations made for a guest list that included the Obamas, the Clintons, Vladimir Putin, and Elton John. That drama began about a decade ago when Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, working at Swedens famed Karolinska Institute, garnered headlines and accolades for replacing damaged tracheas with plastic tubes seeded with patients stem cells that he cultivated in devices called bioreactors. All rights reserved. But some of Alexander's friends began to become suspicious. The very next day, she got an email from a friend that outlined the Pope's plans to visit South America on Benita and Paolo's wedding day. Emanuela Pecchia has been married to Paolo Macchiarini for over 30 years. Born in 1977, this Colombian living in Spain woman suffered from tuberculosis-damaged airways. WebPaolo Macchiarini (born 22 August 1958): 2 is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and Nearly all of those patients have died. They reopened the case in 2020, this time charging Macchiarini on lesser counts of aggravated assault and severe bodily harm. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. Dmitris graft had started collapsing six months into his surgery as well, but he managed to get it successfully removed and is now living with a tracheostomy. On Jan. 12, Dr. Genden got a call: An appropriate donor had died. Meanwhile, Macchiarinis career soared. Paolo Macchiarini at a press conference in 2008. It is unclear whether Dr. Macchiarini is still practicing medicine, but his lawyer said in May that he had no income. He opened and cleaned out the donors esophagus, laying it against Ms. Seins esophagus. Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? Prosecutors dropped the case a few months later, however, saying they didnt have sufficient evidence to prove manslaughter. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. But, he added, Its an indirect technique. It takes time and can replace only the tracheas halfpipe side, so its not a complete tube.. We will send you a maximum of two emails in, We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. In the months and years following their respective surgeries, all of them except Dmitri Onogda have passed away due to post-operative complications. Last year, however, the dream soured, exposing an ugly reality. In the case of Cetir, he should have known the risk of complications was higher than the expected benefit, the judges ruled. That's when, Benita said, it hit her: She had given up a good job and spent $50,000 on a "bogus fantasy wedding" to a man who already had at least two families. Were going to show up and say, As a student, I had this idea on the back of a napkin and now were ready to go and if it fails, the patient dies and it becomes yet another example of some surgeon who thought he could solve a problem and hes created, instead, just the opposite.. Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. In 2013, the hospital halted future operations with synthetic trachea and opted to not extend Macchiarinis contract. Yet, for the vast majority of such treatments, there is little solid evidence that they work. COVID-19 Paolo stated in an interview with a TV station in Iceland that he has always acted in the patients' best interest, and believes that his procedures should be seen as successful. Paolo Macchiarini, in a 2013 photo, implanted synthetic windpipes into multiple patients; all but one died following complications with the implants. In 2010, the Italian surgeon was recruited by KIhome of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Each new scientific discovery brings a flood of stories about how it will revolutionise medicine one day soon. He performed a synthetic trachea transplant on, In 2013, he met documentary television producer. Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. But when Dr. Sander S. Florman, director of Mount Sinais Transplantation Institute, and LiveOnNY, a nonprofit organ donation organization, agreed to collaborate, his wife, Audrey, encouraged him. But even if his days had been numbered, this didnt necessarily justify what Macchiarini put him through. Likewise, they didnt undertake a proper risk assessment of the procedure, nor did Macchiarinis team seek government permits for the plastic windpipes, stem cells, and chemical growth factors they used. She would later discover that the woman in Barcelona had been living with Paolo for years, but that there were several other women in his life as well. Delaere feels the sentence is too light for what he considers a serious crime. For six years, she had endured a tube inserted in her windpipe, or trachea, to keep her alive, but her discomfort and distress were becoming more and more unbearable. But for now, lets focus solely on his medical patients, shall we? Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. But because Macchiarini is apparently living in Spain, its unlikely to have much effect. Benita fell for Macchiarini while a producer for NBC, working on a story on him in 2013. As studies have shown, the media often casts a positive light on stem cell tourism, suggesting that the treatments are effective and the risks low. Dr. Gerdin said Dr. Macchiarini was allowed to continue his procedures for so long because the Karolinska Institute and its hospital allowed him to do so. This organ was prepared without the knowledge of authorities in a veterinary lab at the University of Bristol, but no one questioned it because of its initial success. (LogOut/ Please make a tax-deductible gift today. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising. Why are people hesitant to trust a COVID-19 vaccine? Paolo Macchiarinis income source is mostly from being a successful . This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. He did this by chemically stripping away the cells of a windpipe taken from a deceased donor; he then seeded the bare scaffold with stem cells taken from Castillos own bone marrow. The mild sentence comes as a disappointment to Macchiarinis critics. Ohio A surgeon who just a decade ago was celebrated around the globe as a pioneer in stem cell transplants has been convicted of one count of causing bodily harm, a felony, in a Swedish court. You can see this in the speed with which his breakthroughs were accepted. Because mucus would clog her tube, she was constantly suctioning, constantly worried about her airway, and it becomes overwhelming, Dr. Genden said, like being held down in a swimming pool. An unhappy result of this is the rise of pseudo-scientific therapies. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden. Andemariam Beyene, for instance, had recurrent cancer of the windpipe but, aside from a cough, was still in good health. They exchange their vows in Italy. But Benita, at the time an award-winning investigative news producer for NBC, had no way of knowing that, by the end of her love story, her heart would be broken and many of Paolo's patients who received the "miracle" transplants would be dead. Besides which, compassionate concerns dont override the basic principles of patient safety and informed consent. ONE Super Series If the sins of Karolinska have been committed elsewhere, it is partly because medical research facilities share a common milieu, which harbours common dangers. As of late March, 6.5 percent of cells in the donor trachea were hers, with the proportion increasing, he said. After realizing other treatment methods wouldnt help, he concluded that Ms. Sein had a logical, thoughtful grasp of transplantations risks and of her health condition. She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. The surgeons defense attorney, Bjrn Hurtig, said his client was considering an appeal. The only question was how long it would take weeks, months or a few years. Dr. Genden said Dr. Macchiarinis rise and fall profoundly affected his own path. Colleagues accused him of manipulating his results, even warning of the harm caused by these so-called regenerative windpipes. She received a new trachea in January and is believed to be the first patient in the world to undergo a successful direct transplant of a donor trachea.CreditSarah Blesener for The New York Times. Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. No one wanted to collaborate with me. But hes lost his reputation, and thats more important.. He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. In late 2014, four doctors in Sweden accused him of fraud, saying that he'd falsified data in six of the papers he had published. According to The New York Times, Macchiarini is an Italian surgeon who was found criminally liable this June for causing felony bodily injury to a Turkish woman named Yesim Cetir, a patient who had received one of his 3D-printed windpipes and later died. Eduard Folayang Yet because of the ensuing complications, she had to receive a tracheoplasty in April 2011 and another cadaveric trachea graft in 2018. These included Harriet Wallberg, who was the vice-chancellor of the Karolinska Institute in 2010, when Macchiarini was recruited. All rights reserved. Paolo proposed to her on Christmas Day in 2013. WebIn reality, Paolo had not worked with the Pope, and he was still married to his wife of 30 years. Because immunosuppressant drugs are required to prevent rejection of the transplant, cancer patients would be eligible only if free of cancer for five years, Dr. Genden said.