Lab Grown Penises Ready for Testing on Humans

(Photo: Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, via Winston Tech Salem)

The loss of the penis through physical trauma, such as a battlefield injury, or the malformation of it as the result of a birth defect, can be a brutally debilitating event in a man’s life. But a solution may be on the way.

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has developed a technique to grow human penises in laboratory environments. The process involves taking cells from a man’s own penis, then growing those cells on a collagen scaffold. The reformed penis then grows over the scaffold.

The Institute has already produced rabbit penises successfully using this method. Soon, it will attempt the process on human patients. It is uncertain whether these penises will be capable of erections.

-via Stuff

Previously on Neatorama: Doctors Successfully Implant Laboratory-Grown Human Vaginas