Word: transplanter
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General Electric's division that makes locomotives has been weakened by recession and plunging sales. But rather than abandon the business, GE gave an antiquated factory in Erie, Pa., what General Manager Carl Schlemmer calls an "electronic heart transplant." Cost: $500 million. Giant computer-driven arms and machine tools help the factory turn out locomotives in a fraction of the time once required. A 2,500-lb. motor frame that took 16 days to build can now be done in 16 hours. By 1986 GE could be making about 800 locomotives a year, up a third from current levels...
When two bypass operations failed to help the ailing child, doctors decided on a radical, last-ditch effort to save her life: a liver transplant. The cells of the liver are specially equipped to remove harmful LDL cholesterol from the blood, but because of her genetic defect this mechanism was not working in Stormie's liver. The hope was that a new organ would cleanse LDL cholesterol from her blood and perhaps even reverse the buildup in her arteries. There was one hitch, however. Says Pediatric Surgeon Basil Zittelli of Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, where the transplant...
...only hope for a cure was a transplant of bone marrow, which could provide the body with a rapidly multiplying source of defender cells to ward off disease. Such transplants were once possible only if a genetically matched donor, generally a sibling, could be found. Sadly, David's older sister's cell type did not match his. In the past few years, however, new technology has made it possible to transplant imperfectly matched marrow, making obsolete the isolation approach to David's illness. "There will be no more bubbles," said Dr. William Shearer...
...mortem examination disclosed "totally unexpected" complications, according to Shearer. Accumulations of abnormally large white blood cells known as B cells were found in the boy's intestines, lungs and spleen. The fact that the cells were David's and not his sister's suggested that the transplant had not taken hold. For doctors, the more interesting question was whether these cells were malignant. The answer could provide valuable clues to the immune system and how it defends against cancer. "David's life," said an emotional Shearer, "has been important for medicine, but his greatest contribution...
DIED. David, 12, the longest survivor of severe combined immunodeficiency; 15 days after being released from a lifetime of isolation inside a plastic "bubble"; of complications after a bone-marrow transplant; in Houston (see MEDICINE...