Disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, whose crimes inspired an opera, headed to prison

Paolo Macchiarini, the former stem cell surgeon who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison by a Swedish court for aggravated assault against patients he treated, is expected to begin his sentence sometime in the coming weeks. But he is likely to serve his sentence in Spain, where he currently lives, not in Sweden. The saga surrounding Macchiarini, who was once considered a pioneer of regenerative medicine for implanting patients with synthetic windpipes seeded with their own stem cells, has been the topic of multiple documentaries and podcasts, and has even inspired an opera . In recent weeks he has gained new notoriety as the subject of both a Netflix documentary and the current season of the true crime drama Dr. Death , which stars Mandy Moore and Edgar Ramírez. In June, a Swedish court found Macchiarini acted with criminal intent in his treatment of three patients who received trachea transplants while he was working at the Karolinska Institute. All three patients died after suffering complications from the procedure. The court ruled that Macchiarini knew the surgeries were unlikely to succeed but disregarded the risks to the patients. Macchiarini appealed the conviction to Sweden’s supreme court, submitting additional evidence about the condition of one of the patients before surgery. His defense team had repeatedly argued that the three patients were so severely ill that a transplant was the only way t...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research