This was Macchiarinis first big success. By 2011, he was working in Sweden at one of the worlds most prestigious medical universities, the Karolinska Institute, whose professors annually select the winner of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. "Maybe it happened because I am a journalist, and once I sort of woke up and put my journalist hat back on, I could expose him," she said. She met Macchiarini while producing A Leap of Faith and was soon breaking one of the cardinal rules of journalism: dont fall in love with the subject of your story. February 28, 2022 Emanuela Pecchia is famously known as the wife of popular Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon, Paolo Macchiarini. The first was a Vanity Fair article about his affair with Benita Alexander, an award-winning producer for NBC News. After several weeks in recovery, she is home. All rights reserved. But owing to her cancer returning and the formation of a fistula, she too passed away. He opened and cleaned out the donors esophagus, laying it against Ms. Seins esophagus. Thats what Macchiarini told his fiancee. China He said yeah, so I said Lets go for it., After extracting the donors organs, you go next door and you open up Sonia and you remove the diseased trachea, and there is no going back, Dr. Genden said. Karolinskas leadership expected big things from their superstar, things that would bring prestige and funding to the institute. And Murphy found that Macchiarinis claims about the wedding were almost all untrue and that the surgeon was married and had been for nearly 30 years. Macchiarini has consistently claimed he is innocent. Acquittal is therefore difficult to defend., But Gerdin says the verdict is not unexpected. Selena died in a hospital due to a loss of blood and cardiac arrest, two weeks before her 24th birthday. Paolo Macchiarini rode groundbreaking surgeries to global fame, but patients died anyway. 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When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. Get more great content like this delivered right to you! Therefore, on June 12, 2008, at Hospital Clinic Barcelona, she received a cadaver trachea graft implanted as a bronchus transplant. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. In Sweden, both the defense and the prosecution can appeal rulings, and senior prosecutor Karin Lundstrm-Kron says she and her colleagues will decide in the coming weeks. Probationwtf.he killed people knowing damn well that his trachea was bs! Tennessee Jakarta This was the start of a whirlwind romance that included five-star hotels, travel to far-flung locations, and extravagant shopping sprees. While there isnt enough data to actually prove this, we do have some key indicators. The Karolinska Institute declined to comment for this article, noting only that Dr. Macchiarinis sentence may be appealed. Around the same time, an article in Vanity Fair described how Macchiarini had misled a girlfriendan NBC news producer working on a flattering documentary about his surgeriesinto thinking they would be married in a ceremony attended by the Clintons and Obamas and officiated by the pope. The Karolinska Institute, alleging scientific misconduct, dismissed Dr. Macchiarini, who has long denied wrongdoing. Texas They and their loved ones fall victim to false hope. Its very significant, said Dr. Pierre Delaere, a professor of head and neck surgery at University Hospital Gasthuisberg in Belgium, a trachea specialist not involved in the case. Dr. Genden examines the new trachea by inserting a scope in a hole he left in her neck, which hell eventually close. Here are 13 more things about him: Categories: biographical data, crimes, Europe, fitness & health, Italy, Lifestyle, LISTS, Russia, Social Issues, Sweden, Tagged as: Basel, Benita Alexander, Emanuela Pecchia, Paolo Macchiarini. It won Dr. Macchiarini international news coverage and cemented his place as a celebrity scientist. By June 2013, when Paolo took Benita to Venice, Italy, for a romantic weekend, she knew she was falling madly in love. The Macchiarini scandal claimed many of his powerful friends. If the Pope was planning to marry two divorcees, surely it would be huge global news? Michigan A life-saver and a game-changer. She became close to Paolo as she opened her heart to him about how hard it was for her daughter, then nine years old, to lose her father. Paolo then came across Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene, a man from Eritrea who was training to be a doctor when he got diagnosed with cancer. fall of a celebrity scientist Macchiarini, they claimed, wasnt really doing clinical research. The plastic trachea that Yesim Cetir received disfigured her and made her last three years in life basically like torture, said Bosse Lindquist, a documentarian who broke the story in Sweden about Dr. Macchiarini in a television series, The Experiment.. Los Angeles No one is more powerless than a patient with a disease, said Dr. Gerdin. It must be lined with cilia, hairlike projections like shag carpeting that move and clean the air we breathe in, he said. So, as per the last reports, he is alive and well today. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. Unfortunately, due to complications, she passed away either around Christmas of that year or in the first few months of 2009. Likewise the whole idea of a wedding: Macchiarini was still married to his wife of 30 years. He was handsome, suave, and a charmer. In part, this is because the field of windpipe repair is a niche area. Japan 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). She remained in intensive care for more than three years at Karolinska University Hospital and underwent more than 200 surgical procedures. What Is Benita Alexander Doing Now? She Was Conned But after Alexander learned that Pope Francis was scheduled to visit South America at the time of their wedding, she confronted Macchiarini about his claims. North Carolina Sonia Sein, outside her Bronx home, had irreparable damage to her trachea. Macchiarini was fired in 2016 amid allegations of fraud and scientific misconduct after many of his transplant recipients died. Almost overnight, he became a superstar. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. Paolo grew close to Alexander's daughter [Investigation Discovery], He was incredibly charming, worldly smart, sophisticated, and seemed very gentle," Benita told CrimeFeed. Her global quest to find out the truth about the man who left her personal and professional life in shambles is documented in He Lied About Everything on Investigation Discovery. ONE Championship And after hiring a private investigator, Ms Alexander found that Dr Macchiarini, pictured, was a man of more modest means living in Barcelona and that he was still married to his wife of 30 years Ms Alexander told Vanity Fair: 'I just didn't want to put two and two together. Benita packed her bags again, and began to search for Paolo in order to face him once more and their final confrontation is captured in He Lied About Everything. After being dismissed from the institute, he worked at the Kazan Federal University in Kazan, Russia. Theres a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.. Death season three hopes telling her story will protect There Was Nothing Anybody Could Do for These Patients. Now There Is. Paolo Macchiarini, in a 2013 photo, implanted synthetic windpipes into multiple patients; all but one died following complications with the implants. New York When the blood vessels were finally connected, the donor trachea began bleeding. She visits Mount Sinai weekly for blood work. Its love of human interest stories makes it sympathetic to unproven therapies. If the sins of Karolinska have been committed elsewhere, it is partly because medical research facilities share a common milieu, which harbours common dangers. But the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, Anders Hamsten, wasnt bound by this judgement. 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. Beyenes death two and a half years after the operation, caused by the failure of his artificial airway, was a grueling ordeal. Colorado She remained conscious and awake throughout most of them, but unable to breathe. 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. He convinced the Karolinska Institute that this could make them famous, and they just let him do it. What comes next after Texas school shooting? Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Macchiarinis fall was swift, but troubling questions remain about why he was allowed to continue his experiments for so long. They recently published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine admitting that stem cell research has mostly failed to live up to its therapeutic promise. In such dire circumstances, new treatments can be tried as a last resort. Indonesia How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? Articles in this area are retracted 2.4 times more often than the average for biomedicine, and over half of these retractions are due to fraud. The answer came only a couple of weeks later, when Swedish television began broadcasting a three-part expos of Macchiarini and his work. Dont yet have access? In 2015, the Karolinska Institute hired an independent investigator named Dr. Bengt Gerdin to look into the Macchiarini situation, per the Times. Tokyo I thought, If they do a transplant for everything, they should do a transplant for trachea, she recalled. 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Gerdin determined that Macchiarini committed scientific misconduct, but leadership at the Karolinska Institute ignored the findings and cleared Macchiarini. The verdict is the latest development in Macchiarinis stunning fall from grace. Benita said that, if she can take any lessons away from what happened to her, she hopes that her experience will help others. On the contrary, they seemed to do more harm than good something that Macchiarini had for years concealed or downplayed in his scientific articles, press releases and interviews. They planned to marry in the Catholic Church in Italy. This argument didnt wash with those who later investigated the case. The first season of both the Peacock series and the Wondery podcast of the same name told the story of Christopher Duntsch, a former neurosurgeon now serving a life sentence for botched surgeries that left more than 30 patients maimed or dead. In their view, Macchiarini was certainly engaged in clinical research. According to a witness report, Paolo operated on a 45-50-year-old woman of Middle Eastern origin in a private clinic in Barcelona in the fall of 2008. Sorry we couldn't set a reminder for you this time. Benita fell for Macchiarini while a producer for NBC, working on a story on him in 2013. The Italian surgeon and his Italian wife Emanuela Pecchia have one son and one daughter. In place of clinical data, there are gushing testimonials. Colleagues accused him of manipulating his results, even warning of the harm caused by these so-called regenerative windpipes. In September 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced charges against him for aggravated assault in connection to three surgeries that he had performed at the. For the respect of privacy, his wifes identity is not revealed on the internet. He was born in Basel, Switzerland to Italian parents. Then, in October of 2009, another woman, who had been operated on by Paolo twice before, received her airway transplant. 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. 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. As for Keziah Shorten, who suffered from trachea cancer, Paolo Macchiarini did a transplant on her on July 13, 2010, which failed the very next year. Paolo Macchiarini: Surgeon convicted for fatal Swedish - BBC They will especially examine the judges decision that Macchiarini couldnt be held responsible for what happened to Andemariam and Lyles because he acted in distress, according to the courts statement. Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? He could see no real evidence that the windpipe scaffolds were becoming living, functioning airways in which case, they were destined to fail. The couple set a date: July 11, 2015. I cant do this anymore, Sonia Sein told herself, her family and her doctor. Benita Alexander and Paolo Macchiarini in Venice, Italy [Investigation Discovery]. He took the medical world by storm when he built and transplanted the worlds first bioartificial windpipe two years earlier. Another was a Russian mother named Julia Tuulik, per BBC News. The court had to apply the intentional indifference standard for the assault charges, he says, which is difficult to prove. It did much the same for Macchiarinis windpipe replacements. So did Karolinskas dean of research. According to the magazine, in 2012 he was charged in Italy with attempted aggravated fraud related to alleged efforts to persuade very ill patients to undergo radical surgery at facilities where he had privileges. 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." Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? A 29-year old woman from New Brunswick, New Jersey, posed as a high school student and attended classes for four days before she was caught and arrested. Last year, however, the dream soured, exposing an ugly reality. 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. 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. Paolo Macchiarini In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. 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. Chatri Sityodtong The couple had traveled extensively, but there were a Starting in 2011, Macchiarini performed three transplantations of synthetic tracheas at Karolinska University Hospital, but one of those patients died in 2012, the timeline reports. 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. She says it may mean the judges thought he and the patients believed time was short and options were few. Only three are still alive as of September 2020. You start to panic because you cant breathe., By early 2020, ethical approvals were in place, but the coronavirus pandemic held things up. Vanity Fair also later discovered that several of Paolo's other statements were false, including his claims about having been an associate professor at the University of Pisa. His recovery put Macchiarini on the front page of the New York Times. The charismatic Italian surgeon who designed it foresaw a future where hearts and lungs could be made from plastic, and organ donations became a thing of the past. It would be a star-studded event. Thats what our experience of medical research leads us to suspect. The operation, performed at one of the worlds most prestigious medical universities, part of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was hailed as revolutionary. 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. There was another woman from the Czech Republic with mucoepidermoid carcinoma who received such a transplant. The different gender was important, allowing Dr. Genden to use chromosomal analysis to detect whether Ms. Seins cells populated the new trachea. Mieke Oorts alleged killer used a GPS tracking device to stalk her and would drive up and down the road where she lived to intimidate her. As for Keziah Shorten, who suffered from trachea cancer, Paolo Macchiarini did a transplant on her on July 13, 2010, which failed the very next year. 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. They also questioned whether Macchiarini had obtained proper ethical permission for the surgeries and challenged a paper describing animal experiments with the technique. Called Experimenten (The Experiments), it argued convincingly that Macchiarinis artificial windpipes were not the life-saving wonders wed all been led to believe. His lawyer did not respond to emails from Science today. They didnt even seek the approval of Stockholms ethical review board, which is based at Karolinska. Faced with this public relations disaster, the Karolinska Institute immediately promised to investigate the allegations but then, within days, suddenly announced that Macchiarinis contract would not be extended. Benita told CrimeFeed that Paolo always paid for everything and was "extremely generous." Their devastating documentary, which aired in January 2016, led KI officials to reopen the investigation. Macchiarini had often boasted to Alexander of his famous friends. Macchiarini gave his regenerating windpipes to 17 or more patients worldwide. Benita Alexander thought that she was living a real-life fairy tale when she met her fianc, Paolo Macchiarini. Paolo was a world-renowned surgeon who spoke six languages, mingled with the global elite, and resembled George Clooney. Any woman would swoon for such a catch! Photographs document Ms. Seins trachea transformation: Her old windpipe looks raw and red, her new one smooth as porcelain. There he reinvented his technique. So in 2010, Paolo operated on her at the National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow. 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. Emanuela Pecchia Everything We Know On Paolo Macchiarini She says she feels she has been given a chance of being alive one more time.. He was eventually dismissed from Karolinska. The grant ended in spring 2017. He is still licensed to practice medicine in Europe. But on Thursday, the surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, was found criminally liable by a Swedish court for causing felony bodily injury to a patient he had fitted with one of the windpipes at a medical university in Sweden. For other cases, though, doctors say the approach seems promising. The secret sauce in his approach, he said, is transplanting not just the donor trachea but also its attached esophagus (food tube), thyroid gland and thyroid arteries. "If I made a checklist of what I wanted a man to be, he had everything.". Or rather, his celebrity status helped him do so. In his case, his stem cells were seeded into the airway just hours before it was implanted into him, making it work perfectly fine. Recently, Ms. Sein, covering the hole with her hand to speak, enthused about having the energy to cook sesame chicken for the first time and how she aims to visit relatives in Puerto Rico. With Macchiarinis exploits endorsed by management and breathlessly reported in the media, it was all too easy to jump on that bandwagon.