Engineering Implantable, Laboratory-Grown Organs To Cure Disease

Though medical science may still be years away from growing a heart outside of the human body, the scientists at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) are getting closer every day to reproducing and perfecting many of the tissues, blood vessels and other organs of the human body. Engineering laboratory-grown organs to implant into humans is why the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) exists. After all, they were the first in the world to do it in 1999 with engineered bladder tissue. What seemed like science fiction just a few years ago is happening now at WFIRM. Touted as an international leader in translating scientific discovery into clinical therapies, the physicians and scientists at WFIRM at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina are developing organs and tissues for virtually every part of the human body as they attempt to engineer more than 30 different replacement tissues and organs and to develop healing cell therapies--all with the same goal--to cure, rather than just treat, disease. "Our goal is to apply the principles of regenerative medicine to repair or replace diseased tissues and organs," Atala said.