Three spina bifida fetuses were born in the University of California Davis Health Center after receiving cell therapy. The researchers said that this is a landmark clinical trial and the first unique method in the world to combine surgery with stem cells. It can improve the prognosis of children with this congenital defect disease when the fetus is still developing in the mother's womb. The clinical trial was launched in the spring of 2021, officially called "CuRe trial: cell therapy for repairing intrauterine myelomeningocele", and 35 patients will be treated. The first clinical participant was Emily, whose daughter Robbie was diagnosed with spina bifida when she was in her abdomen. This birth defect can lead to a series of lifelong cognitive, activity, urinary and intestinal diseases, usually diagnosed by ultrasound. Preliminary work has proved that prenatal surgery combined with human placental derived mesenchymal stromal cells and fixed into a "patch" with biomaterial scaffolds can help lambs with spina bifida walk. When young sheep receiving stem cells are born, they can stand up and run around almost normally. Since then, a pair of British bulldogs have become the first dogs in the world to successfully undergo surgery and stem cell therapy. This time, the research team made stem cell patches for Emily's fetus. During the operation, they "float" the fetus to the incision point, place the stem cell patch directly on the exposed spinal cord of the fetus, and then suture the incision to regenerate the tissue. After the baby was born, doctors saw Robbie kicking her leg, which she should have been born with leg paralysis. "This experience exceeded everyone's expectations. I hope this trial can improve the quality of life of more patients in the future." Emily said, "We are honored to be a part of history." "I have worked for this day for 25 years," said Diana Farmer, the lead researcher of the study and professor and surgical director of the University of California, Davis Health Center The team was still cautious about the final conclusion and said that there was still much to study at this stage of the experiment. They will monitor the three clinically born infants until they are 30 months old to fully evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the trial. [Editor in chief] One of the purposes of prenatal examination is to detect the defects of the fetus and take appropriate measures. Generally speaking, there are not many interventions before birth. If some difficult problems are encountered, parents must face the dilemma of terminating pregnancy or continuing. The emergence of intrauterine surgery has given children and parents a third way - doctors can let children repair their injuries when they are still in their mother's belly, and babies at birth have relatively healthy bodies. Now the world's first batch of children who had experienced cell therapy before birth have been born. Parents and medical personnel have given three lovely children a chance to try bravely. See if such efforts can rewrite history. (Outlook New Times)