Surgeons have, for the first time, used a combination of an artificial heart and stem cells to save the life of a dying man.

Ioannis Manolopoulos was fitted with the mechanical pump because his heart was too weak to push blood around his body. Surgeons then injected his failing heart muscle with six million of his stem cells in the hope that they would repair the damage. Speaking exclusively to Sky News, he said he owed the British and Greek surgeons his life. He said: “If things go well, I must go to church and pray because I feel very lucky to get this device and have the chance of a normal life.”

“Stem cell transplants have freed patients with type 1 diabetes of daily insulin injections’” The Daily Telegraph has said. The news comes after research that allowed volunteers to go, on average, for two and a half years without using the multiple daily injections normally needed to manage their condition.

Scientists have created part of the jaw joint in the lab using human adult stem cells. They say it is the first time a complex, anatomically sized bone has been accurately created in this way.

It is hoped the technique could be used not only to treat disorders of the specific joint, but more widely to correct problems with other bones too. The Columbia University study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

An Australian man who was confined to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis has made a remarkable recovery after receiving a ground breaking stem cell treatment.

Ben Leahy, 20, was diagnosed with the disease in 2008 and lost the ability to stand within a few months. However, a new procedure to combat the disease has helped him regain his health and he is now walking again. The treatment targets the immune system of multiple sclerosis patients, which turns in on it self causing damage to nerves which can lead to blurred vision, loss of balance and paralysis.

A Gillingham man who faced losing his leg in a climbing accident saw it saved thanks to a revolutionary ‘glue’ made from stem cells.

Andrew Kent’s right leg was broken in five places by a falling boulder while he was climbing with his son in the Langdale Pikes in the Lake District in April. The 53-year-old was rushed to hospital in Carlisle, where the broken bones were pinned back together in three operations.

A man who was partially blinded after intervening in a fight has had his vision restored by a new stem-cell therapy.

Russell Turnbull, 38, lost most of the sight from his right eye in 1994 when he was sprayed in the face with ammonia while trying to break up an altercation on a bus in Newcastle upon Tyne. The chemical burnt his cornea, leaving him with cloudy vision, pain on every blink and extreme sensitivity to light.