A Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon is named for Paolo Macchiarini. He is also a former researcher on regenerative medicine. He is well-known for his research fraud and for his manipulative behavior. He was considered a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine using both biological and synthetic scaffolds seeded with patients’ own stem cells as trachea transplants, and he was a visiting researcher on a temporary contract at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden from 2010. He has been accused of research misconduct and unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients. Seven out of the eight patients who received his synthetic trachea transplants have died. Working for Karolinska Institute, his contract was terminated and then he started working at the Kazan (Volga region) Federal University in Russia, until the university terminated his project in April 2017, effectively firing him. As of 2020, he has had eight of his research papers retracted, and two have received an expression of concern.
Famous For
- Being a Swiss-born Italian transplant surgeon.
- For being credited with medical miracles, including the world’s first synthetic organ transplant, which involved fashioning a trachea, or windpipe, out of plastic and then coating it with a patient’s own stem cells.
Source: @community.babycenter.com
What is the Birthplace of Paolo Macchiarini?
On 22nd August 1958, Paolo Macchiarini was born in Basel, Switzerland (birthplace). He holds Swiss nationality and his ethnicity is Swiss-White. Thus, his race is White. He was born to Italian parents. He experienced his childhood in Basel. As of 2020, he celebrated his 62nd birthday. Leo is his Zodiac sign and his religion is Christian. Details about her father and mother’s name, siblings have not been publicized yet. Concerning his educational background, Paolo achieved his medical degree (equivalent to MD) at the Medical School of the University of Pisa, Italy in the year 1986. In the year 1991, he achieved a Master of Surgery and became an assistant professor from the year 1990 to 1992. Additionally, in the year 1989, he took a course on statistics in clinical research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. What’s more, he also obtained degree certificates; master’s in organ and tissue transplantation dated 1994 and a doctorate in the same dated 1997, from the University of Franche-Comte. He was also head of the department of thoracic and vascular surgery at the Heidehaus Hanover hospital between 1999 and 2004. From the year 2006 to 2009, he was an investigator at the Institut d’Investigacions Biomediques-Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas in Barcelona. He was also an employee at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. He had an honorary appointment as a Visiting Professor from 2009 to 2014 at University College London. In the year 2010, he was a consultant and project manager at University Hospital Careggi and he was appointed as a visiting professor at the Karolinska Institute the same year and also he worked as a part-time position as a surgeon at the affiliated University hospital. Later, Karolinska terminated the contract by publishing the incomplete verification of his CV in February 2016. Later, he did a trachea transplant in Russia which led to an appointment at Kuban State Medical University funded by the university and the Russian government. He moved to Kazan Federal University in the year 2016 but in April 2017, the University terminated his research project.
How was the Career of Paolo Macchiarini?
Notable trachea surgeries
- Paolo did a transplant of a donated trachea colonized with the stem cells of the recipient, Claudia Castillo in June 2008. The tissue was used to replace her left bronchus which was damaged by tuberculosis and resulted in the collapse of her left lung. The trachea was successfully transplanted by a team led by Macchiarini at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.
- After that, he next attended a transplant performed by Great Ormond Street surgeons on a 10-year-old Irish boy named Ciaran Finn-Lynch which was similarly done to Castillo.
- He also did a transplant to Kaziah Shorten who had trachea cancer in the year 2010 but the transplant failed the next year and later was at University College Hospital London in 2011.
- Also, he implanted a seeded donated trachea in a woman in Russia, working with the Russian surgeon Vladimir Parshin in the year 2010.
- He then next came to the man Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene who was diagnosed with cancer. The operation occurred in June 2011 and was widely covered in the media, including a front-page story in the New York Times. Andemariam died in January 2013 after failing the implant. The autopsy showed that he had a chronic lung infection, a clot in his lung, and the trachea had come loose.
- Christopher Lyles asked paolo to do him the same as Beyene and Macchiarini obliged, creating a fully synthetic trachea seeded with stem cells from Lyles and implanting it at Karolinska in November 2011. then, in 2012, Lyles died suddenly.
- He next implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea in Yulia Tuulik at Kuban State Medical University as of June 2012. The trachea later collapsed, and was replaced; she died in 2014.
- He implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea at Kuban State University, on Alexander Zozulya in June 2012 but the patient died in February 2014.
- A Turkish woman, Yesim Cetir died in March 2017 after having treatment from Paolo Macchiarini.
- After that, he implanted a fully synthetic, seeded trachea in Hannah Warren in April 2013. The operation was performed in the U.S., at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois. Later, she died on 6th July 2013 after complications of the second surgery.
- The next patient, Sadiq Kanaan received a fully synthetic seeded tracheal implant from Macchiarini at Kuban State University in August 2013 but he later died the same year.
- He implanted a fully synthetic seeded trachea in Dmitri Onogda at the Kuban State University in June 2014 but the implant was failed and was replaced. As of 2017, Dmitri was still alive.
- He was now planning another first: a synthetic-trachea transplant on a child, a two-year-old Korean-Canadian girl named Hannah Warren, who had spent her entire life in a Seoul hospital. Hannah Warren died from post-surgical complications less than three months after the transplant.
- It is unclear where exactly is Paolo Macchiarini now.
Source: @bbc.com
Paolo Macchiarini Allegations
- Paolo Macchiarini was arrested in Italy in the year 2012 & charged with asking patients at the University Hospital Careggi for money to expedite their procedures. Later, the charges were dismissed in May 2015.
- He was next accused by four former colleagues and co-authors of having falsified claims in his research. It was in the year 2014.
- Then “Sveriges Television” investigative TV show ‘Dokument inifran’ which started airing a three-part series, titled “Experimenten”, in which Macchiarini’s work was investigated. The documentary presented Macchiarini continuing operations with the new method even after it showed little or no promise, exaggerating the health of his patients in articles as they died one by one. Allegations were also made that patients’ medical conditions both before and after the operations. But Paolo stated that the synthetic trachea had been tested on animals before using it on humans, something that could not be verified.
- Later, the BBC broadcast a three-part “Storyville” documentary, ‘Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon’, directed by Bosse Lindquist and based on the earlier Swedish programs about Macchiarini. It was broadcasted in October 2016.
Legal Proceedings
- Swedish Police opened an investigation into whether Paolo might have committed involuntary manslaughter. It was in June 2016.
- The police prosecutor’s office announced in October 2017 stating that all criminal charges against Paolo has been dropped.
- Later in the year 2019, an Italian court sentenced him to 16 months in prison for abuse of office and forging documents.
- Mikael Bjork, director of Public Prosecution in Sweden indicted an unnamed surgeon on charges of aggravated assault on 19th September 2020. Swedish news agency TT said the indicted surgeon was Dr. Paolo Macchiarini. Bjork said he reopened the investigation in December of 2018 and obtained new written evidence and interviewed individuals in five different countries. Bjork said victims received “serious physical injuries and great suffering” as a result of the operations performed on them and that he “made the assessment that the three operations are therefore to be considered as aggravated assault.”
Who is Paolo Macchiarini married to?
Paolo Macchiarini is a married man. He married his beautiful wife, Emanuela Pecchia in the year of 1986. After his father died, he started a family of his own. The married couple; Paolo and Emanuela are also proud parents of two childrenskids (a daughter and a son). His sexual orientation is straight and he is not gay.
Relationship with Benita Alexander
Paolo and Benita Alexander firstly met each other at the bar at Boston’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. It was February 2013, shortly before Macchiarini would have his initial interview with Meredith Vieira for a two-hour NBC special called A Leap of Faith. Then, Alexander and Macchiarini found themselves together in Illinois for a period of weeks in the spring of 2013- brought there by the NBC special. After that, they met frequently for quiet dinners. Later, their romantic moment started after they flew to Venice. He also bought her red roses and Venetian-glass earrings and took her on a gondola ride under the Bridge of Sighs. After their time in Venice, she flew to see Macchiarini in Stockholm two weeks later. “Our nights were always spent together, and always romantic in one way or another,” she said. By October 2013, when Macchiarini and Alexander flew to Europe for another romantic getaway, she had in her own mind reconciled her personal and professional behavior. ‘Paolo proposed Benita on Christmas Day 2013’, Benita said. The duo went on trips to the Bahamas, Turkey, Mexico, Greece, and Italy. They went on shopping sprees and ate their way through Michelin-starred restaurants. He even took Alexander and her daughter to meet his mother at her home, in Lucca. “She cooked homemade gnocchi,” Alexander recalled. Benita is currently working on documentaries and docuseries. She has also worked on sharing her own story with the public, and it was the subject of the 2018 documentary “He Lied About Everything”. She is sharing her perspective, once again, on what happened between her and her ex-fiancé in “The Con”. Hundreds of Benita Alexander’s friends and family had already bought their plane tickets to Italy to attend her extravagant wedding that was supposed to be officiated by the pope when it all came crashing down in a flurry of her fiancé’s deception. None of the promises Alexander said her fiancé Paolo Macchiarini had made for their wedding day would come true. As Alexander began to unravel the web of lies Macchiarini had told her, she began to wonder if the world-renowned thoracic surgeon had also misled people in his professional life.
Source: @nypost
Everything You Need To Know About Benita Alexander-Jeune
About Benita Alexander’s personal life, she is a married woman. She was married to a fellow reporter John Noel and moved to New York City where she joined NBC’s “Dateline”. With him, she also has a daughter named Jessina. Later, they divorced in the year 2009.
What is the Net Worth of Paolo Macchiarini?
Paolo Macchiarini is a famous thoracic surgeon and a former researcher on regenerative medicines. As of 2021, the net worth of Paolo Macchiarini is estimated to have $1.4 Million from his profession as per sources. Whereas his exact salary at present is still to get unfold yet but there is no doubt in the mind of his followers that he is making a good amount of money from his work. His major source of wealth comes from a surgeon’s career. He is living a cool lifestyle from his career earnings and he is satisfied with whatever he is receiving as of today.
How tall is Paolo Macchiarini?
Paolo Macchiarini is a very handsome surgeon with a charming smile and a glowing face. Being at the age of 62, he still looks very young. He has maintained his body a lot by doing frequent exercises. His hair color is grey and he has a pair of brown eyes color. His body build is average. He stands tall at the perfect height matching his body weight. Reasons for his amazing personality could be his roots. His other body measurement has not been publicized yet. Overall, he has got a healthy body.
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