A few years ago, Dr. Anthony Atala’s lab at Wake Forest University
got good at making ears. They were growing new ears on a scaffold using
patient's cells, because so many soldiers were losing their ears in explosions.
Now the Department of Defense has a project that’s closer to Atala’s heart:
making new genitals for soldiers who have stepped on bombs.
Other labs are still moving forward with the ear project for the military.
But Atala has special expertise dating back to his days as a pediatric
urologist. He’s already grown bladders using a patient’s own cells, and he’s
made penises that rabbits were able to put to their proper use, fathering
litters of new little bunnies. He hopes to use this expertise to help rebuild
the bodies of veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as men and boys
injured in car accidents.Atala is one of the pioneers of regenerative medicine. But the field has taken off in a big way, attracting biotechnology companies, the U.S. military and academic labs, which are working to literally make the blind see and the lame walk again. They’re perfecting spray-on skin and aim to mass-produce new body parts using bioprinters based on the jet printers attached to your home computer.
“Right now, the way these organs are made is creating them one by one. By bringing the bioprinting in, we can scale it up,” says Atala, whose lab has contracts with the four-year-old Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), biotechnology companies and private foundations.
All of this technology is years away from the doctor's office. The most
advanced treatments have just begun the very earliest stages of human testing.
But all evidence points to the tantalizing prospect of grow-your-own organs and
possibly even limbs within a decade or so, and some approaches, such as muscle
transplants and spray-on skin, are helping a lucky few now.
Atala’s lab in 2006 made the first full organ ever grown and implanted into a human – the bladder – and the rabbit penises were the first solid organs. A new bid from AFIRM caught his eye. It called for experts in rebuilding the lower abdomen, the genitals, the pelvic area and the bladder.
These injuries are among the least talked-about but among the most horrible affecting war veterans. The improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, planted by insurgents across Iraq and Afghanistan blow off feet, legs and arms, and they can especially damage the pelvic areas that are difficult to protect with body armor.
Atala’s lab is also working to make kidneys, muscle implants, and even to find ways to get fingers to regenerate on their own. (It has to do with waking up some very powerful DNA that goes to sleep soon after a fetus develops). AFIRM’s mission is to align labs like Atala’s with others around the country, getting them to collaborate on projects rather than compete. AFIRM currently funds around 50 research labs, including leaders such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Rutgers University, the Cleveland Clinic and Rice University.
“We don’t really feel that other groups are competition at all,” Atala says “Our interest is really to get these technologies into patients. We consider the disease the competition.”
Atala’s lab in 2006 made the first full organ ever grown and implanted into a human – the bladder – and the rabbit penises were the first solid organs. A new bid from AFIRM caught his eye. It called for experts in rebuilding the lower abdomen, the genitals, the pelvic area and the bladder.
These injuries are among the least talked-about but among the most horrible affecting war veterans. The improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, planted by insurgents across Iraq and Afghanistan blow off feet, legs and arms, and they can especially damage the pelvic areas that are difficult to protect with body armor.
Atala’s lab is also working to make kidneys, muscle implants, and even to find ways to get fingers to regenerate on their own. (It has to do with waking up some very powerful DNA that goes to sleep soon after a fetus develops). AFIRM’s mission is to align labs like Atala’s with others around the country, getting them to collaborate on projects rather than compete. AFIRM currently funds around 50 research labs, including leaders such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Rutgers University, the Cleveland Clinic and Rice University.
“We don’t really feel that other groups are competition at all,” Atala says “Our interest is really to get these technologies into patients. We consider the disease the competition.”
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