These kinds of ideas to use stem-cells with foreign materials seemed in vogue back then, no idea how feasible they are in reality but an improvised similar technique for tracheae was how Paolo Macchiarini first got hyped and then convicted (He went on to try it on humans despite skipping animal trials of the technique).
> Macchiarini was convicted of unethically performing experimental surgeries, even on relatively healthy patients, resulting in fatalities for seven of the eight patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants.
Fuuuuck. I think I heard about this guy before he went mad scientist, but not after.
Yeah, the early hopeful news spread widely but the scandal and fallout certainly kept things in the news over here for a long time.
There's a Netflix pop-documentary called "Bad Surgeon" with a that does cover the viewpoint of the colleagues that turned whistleblowers (and the persecution they endured before media and prosecutors started looking into it) even if much of the focus is on his many concurrent women (the main one believing she's going to be wed by the pope).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Macchiarini