Lab-grown penis
WASHINGTON - RESEARCHERS have engineered artificial penises in rabbits, using cells from the animals, who then used their new organs to father baby rabbits.
The work takes scientists closer to making other complex solid organs such as livers using a patient's own cells, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.
It provides a tailor-made transplant, said Dr Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who led the study.
Dr Atala focused on the penis because he is a pediatric urologist, who has specialized for years in disorders and congenital defects of the bladder and sexual organs.
He is also a specialist in regenerative medicine, which uses the body's own cells to repair damage. In this case, Dr Atala's team used ordinary cells, not the stem cells often used in such research.
Dr Atala's team, which took 18 years to complete work, first created a scaffold using the penis of a rabbit, and removed all the living cells from it, leaving only cartilage. They then took a small piece of tissue from the penis of another rabbit and grew the cells in a lab dish. -- REUTERS
Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking...ry_452436.html
Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:12 am