A government-funded lab in North Carolina has already grown more than 30 human tissues for organs such as kidneys, hearts, bladders, urethras and even female vaginas. But scientists have added one more vital organ: the male penis.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem has successfully "manufactured" the first 6 laboratory-regenerated human male molecules, for which they are awaiting approval from the Federal Food and Drug Administration, so that they can proceed with what they call "in-man testing.".
“Our goal is to give the organs to patients with injuries or genetic abnormalities,” the Institute’s director, Professor Anthony Atala, told the Guardian.
The first beneficiaries of the new technique will be men with erection problems, which in most cases have to do with problems in the male penis tissue, Atala's team says. In this case, a partial replacement of the organ is made, using the patient's own cells. In the future, however, this technique is expected to be used in sex change operations, in replacing the genitals of men with genetic abnormalities, as well as in soldiers with serious injuries in this area. Professor Atala's research is funded by the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
This revolutionary technique involves creating a collagen “scaffold” from the donor of the male organ. This scaffold is washed with a special solution to remove the donor’s DNA and then infused with cells from the same patient, which can be taken internally even if the organ is not present in the body.
Older experiments of transplanting the donor organ directly into the recipient did not yield good results since the recipient's body rejected the organ if it did not have cells with its own DNA.
Atala, who first successfully “fabricated” organs in rabbits in 2008, expects human trials to begin in about five years. In the meantime, the male organs he has built in his lab undergo numerous tests daily, where special machines squeeze, pull, stretch, and even fill them with fluids to test the suitability of their erections.
