Kidneys filter waste from the blood creating urine the bladder holds until it is released Growing Organs in the Lab But what if there were a way to engineer an organ using a patient s own cells This would eliminate the need for an organ donor and also help ensure the organ wouldn't be rejected Immunosuppressant drugs would be less necessary After all the body isn't likely to reject the patient's own cells It may sound like science fiction but there are patients today who are living healthy lives with The First Organ Transplant bladders urethras and vaginas that were grown inside a laboratory In 2001 a research team from Wake Forest University led by Dr Anthony Atala became the first group to successfully transplant lab grown human bladders into patients using the patients own cells Seven children from ages four to 19 who had poor bladder function received the transplants The first successful human organ transplant was performed in 1954 The patient 23 year old Richard Herrick had been experiencing kidney failure To save his brother Herrick's identical twin Ronald agreed to donate one of his own kidneys More than 30 years later the surgeon who performed the transplant Dr Joseph Murray received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in order to expand the pool of donors beyond identical twins however researchers needed to find ways to prevent organ rejection Eventual they made another breakthrough the successful development of treatments to suppress the immune system which enabled t body to accept the new organ To create the bladders scientists took a small piece of the diseased bladder tissue roughly half the size of a postage stamp gently took apart the cells and grew the cells outside the body They then created a biodegradable scaffold or frame made of polyglycolic acid and collagen Polyglycolic acid is a man made material used to make some plastics and skin care products Collagen is a protein found in connective 6
A Bladder Matter Luke Massella was born with spina bifida a birth his parents decided to try an experimental surgery defect that paralyzed his bladder By the time he a lab grown bladder transplant Luke was one of was ten Luke had been through 16 surgeries His the first patients to receive a bladder generated poor bladder function eventually caused urine from his own cells Ten years later in 2011 Luke to back up in his kidneys which prevented them was invited onstage to join Dr Anthony Atala of the from functioning correctly He experienced kidney Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine failure and faced a lifetime of dialysis Dialysis is a whose team had developed the bladder during a life support treatment that performs the role of the presentation Luke who by then was a sophomore kidneys The patient is hooked up to a machine that at the University of Connecticut was asked about filters out waste and excess water from the blood his experience as a recipient of an engineered But it is time consuming requiring three four hour bladder This surgery came along and basically made treatments each week It was then that Luke and me who I am today and saved my life he said tissue such as skin The researchers shaped the scaffold to resemble the bladder then placed a layer of the patient s muscle cells on the outside A layer of the patient s laboratory grown bladder lining cells were placed on the inside Finally the researchers put the structure and cells in a bioreactor a device that can grow cells and tissues under controlled conditions The cells could then grow and multiply to create the functional organ The process took approximately two months The organs were then transplanted into the patients Five years later Atala and his team announced the seven patients who had received the lab grown bladders showed no signs of complications The transplants had been a success Atala's research continues In a study published in 2014 he reported that his team had successfully implanted vaginas in four teenage girls who were born with a rare genetic condition that prevented their vaginas from fully developing Again the team used the patients own cells to develop the
Anthony Atala 1958 Peruvian born Dr Anthony Atala is a researcher surgeon and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine He is a pioneer in the field of tissue engineering His research has been featured among the top medical breakthroughs by Time magazine Discover magazine and a number of other publications He has received prestigious awards honoring his contribution to medicine and technology His team of researchers is currently working on a number of projects related to tissue and organ replacement including the three dimensional printing of a human kidney The team has designed a printer that can print kidney cells as well as the biomaterials needed to hold these cells together Atala hopes Dr Atala three dimensional printing will someday help address the global organ shortage 9
