December 14th, 2009

CBS reports:

(CBS)  It sounds like science fiction, but the fact is biotech companies and the government are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into research they hope will one day make it possible for us to grow new body parts.

It is called regenerative medicine and the goal is to help the thousands waiting for organ transplants and the hundreds of veterans who return from Iraq and Afghanistan horribly maimed.

So far, researchers have created beating hearts, ears and bladders by manipulating cells in the human body into regrowing tissue. The hope is to one day profoundly change human lives.

Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Web Extra: Making Body Parts
Web Extra: Growing and Ear
Web Extra: Kaitlyne’s Story

Dr. Anthony Atala runs the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina. You name the body part, chances are Dr. Atala is trying to grow one.

“Currently at the institute we’re working on over 22 different tissues and organs,” Dr. Atala told 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer.

According to Atala, they are working on regenerating bladders, kidneys, lungs and more. “The possibilities really are endless,” he said.

“Are you suggesting a remarkable future when organs fail, we simply replace them and live to 120? 150?” Safer asked.

“Well, the hope for the future is that if you do have a patient who has organ failure, you don’t want that patient to die because you’re waiting for an organ,” Atala said. “People are dying every day on the transplant wait list. So the hope of the field is that some day we can provide replacement tissues and organs that can be used to help them survive.”

Atala presides over the world’s largest lab devoted to bioengineering body parts. He has made everything from components of fingers to kidneys – it’s enough to make Dr. Frankenstein jealous.

Click here to read full article