Researchers said yesterday that they have grown complete urinary bladders in a laboratory and transplanted them into patients, improving their health and achieving a Holy Grail of medicine: the first cultivation of working replacements for failing solid organs in people.
And please note, no tiny human beings were harmed in the making of these bladders:
The "neo-bladders," each one grown in a small laboratory container from a pinch of a patient's own cells, have been working in seven young patients for an average of almost four years, according to a report released yesterday by the British journal the Lancet [emphasis mine].
Nor will they be needed to create other organs:
Experts applauded the work as a coming of age for the long-struggling field of tissue engineering and as a possible way to bypass some of the controversy over embryonic stem cells.
Hurrah. RTWT, it's really fascinating.
