Scientists Grow Male Sex Organs in Lab

A North Carolina lab has successfully grown human male sex organs in its own laboratory - a medical breakthrough that's seen to give hope to those with "congenital abnormalities" or injuries.

Will this give rise to cosmetic solutions for those wishing to have more impressive genital proportions? That remains to be seen, as the scientists are yet to get FDA approval for "in-man" testing, Mashable said.

"The first beneficiaries would be men with erectile dysfunction, most cases of which have to do with scar tissue in the penis," the site noted. "These would be partial penis replacements, using cells from the patient's own penis."

The researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, headed by Professor Anthony Atala, started the project in 2008, with the engineering of penises for rabbits.

"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," Professor Atala told The Guardian. The said project is funded by the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which reportedly "hopes to use the technology to help soldiers who sustain battlefield injuries."

The process generally begins with "a donor organ" that is then washed "in detergent to get rid of any cells that might be rejected by the new host."

"After a few weeks, his team is left with a sort of 'scaffold' of the original organ," The Washington Post explained. "Cells from whatever remains of the host's original penis are cultivated in the lab, giving the team a nice supply of the different types of cells required. Once the scaffold is ready, it's seeded with these cultivated cells."

The use of the patient's own cells is necessary "to avoid the high risk of immunological rejection after organ transplantation from another individual," The Guardian noted.

However, this method "won't be suitable for female-to-male sex transition surgery" due to the heavy use of penile cells. "The host needs to have some for doctors to work with," The Washington Post continued.

The Daily Mail recalled that the same team had also announced earlier this year that they had "successfully grown vaginas in a laboratory and implanted them into four teenage patients."

"The new organs were given to women born with MRKH - Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the vagina and uterus are underdeveloped or absent," the publication added.