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
Then the researchers followed the patients for eight years At the end of this period they Doctors created a scaffold from a new type of plastic and added found that the young women had healthy vaginas with no abnormalities the patient's cells to create the first synthetic windpipe New findings continue to emerge in the field of organ development From surgeons in Sweden who developed the first synthetic windpipe transplanted in a cancer patient to future plans to transplant lab grown penises in patients who have penile cancer traumatic injury or were born with abnormalities there is seemingly no end to the possibilities in the field Creating organs such as skin windpipes bladders and vaginas were huge successes in the field but the biggest research challenges lie ahead The complexities of these flat or saclike organs pale in comparison to solid organs such as kidneys lungs the heart and the liver Creating the intricate network of blood vessels necessary to keep these organs alive has proven an enormous challenge for scientists Three Dimensional Printing Many scientists believe the real future of organ generation lies in three dimensional printing Three dimensional objects begin as a digital file Successive layers of material in this case human cells are printed or laid down This bio ink is layered onto a base material such as a gel or a sugar Once the organ has been printed it is placed in a bioreactor before being transplanted into a patient Three dimensional printing has produced bones ears windpipes a jawbone and blood vessels But researchers around the world are setting their sights even higher bioprinting a solid organ First on their wish list A kidney 10
