Mumbai: There is some good news for men with genital abnormalities, thanks to tissue engineers who have come up with lab-grown penises, as reported in The Guardian.
Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are assessing engineered penises for safety, function and durability. They hope to get approval for human testing from the US Food and Drug Administration.
The organ would be grown using the patient’s own cells.
As reported, Professor Anthony Atala who oversaw the institute’s successful engineering of penises for rabbits in 2008, said human organ transplantation was on the horizon.
“The rabbit studies were very encouraging but to get approval for humans we need all the safety and quality assurance data, we need to show that the materials aren’t toxic, and we have to spell out the manufacturing process, step by step,” he said.
The report also mentions that it would take about four to six weeks for cells from the patient’s penis to grow in a culture.
