Feats don’t phallus now, but they might before long if some very promising tissue regeneration and anatomical reconstruction applications proven successful in rabbits hop over to application in humans.
By all accounts, it represents the very best in “junk science.”
Live Science reports of the study and the subsequent findings that are slated for publication in the journal PNAS.
OK, stop snickering, this is serious science.
Damage to penile tissue stemming from injury or disease has been an extraordinarily difficult matter for patients and for the physicians treating them. Replicating the highly specialized cells that form naturally functioning male reproductive anatomy has proven elusive. Primary reconstructive techniques have largely been of a mechanical and prosthetic variety.
Doctors at Wake Forest University’s Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC, have successfully demonstrated that these highly specialized cells can indeed be generated. Further still, following injection into the patient, the regenerated cells are capable of forming new, repaired anatomical structures that are fully functional for reproductive purposes.
The breakthrough procedure raises hopes among those who have been afflicted with injury, congenital abnormality, or who have suffered organ damage due to cancer.
And now for the obvious. Live Science notes that there may be interest in any procedure that becomes developed for humans for elective, cosmetic purposes. Medical researcher and study co-author Anthony Atala ponders the potential applications in a statement provided to Live Science:
“Our intent and the goal of our work is to provide a solution for men who need penile erectile tissue for medical reasons. Of course, you cannot control how the technology is used in terms of what patients want.”
Photo courtesy of EVN-AG, via Wikimedia Commons
