Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the first transplant of an artificial organ.
An Eritrean man has received a new windpipe, created with his own stem cells.
Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.
The technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.
Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Italy led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital.
A month after the operation, the BBC reports the patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, 36, is doing well.
Mr Beyene, a geology student currently lives in Iceland where he is studying for a PhD. His windpipe had been ravaged by an inoperable tumour.
Despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer had grown to the size of a golf ball and was blocking his breathing. Without a transplant he would have died.
Anti-rejection drugs not required
During a 12-hour operation Professor Macchiarini removed all of the tumour and the diseased windpipe and replaced it with the tailor-made replica.
Bone marrow cells and lining cells taken from his nose, which were also implanted during the operation, were able to divide and grow, turning the inert windpipe scaffold into an organ indistinguishable from a normal healthy one.
Mr Beyene will not need to take anti-rejection drugs that other transplant patients have to.
Professor Macchiarini said this was the real breakthrough.
''Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week.
''This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation.''
He said many other organs could be repaired or replaced in the same way.
Mr Beyene says he is eternally grateful to the medical team that has saved his life.
''I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die,'' he said.
