Regenerative medicine breakthroughs
The work being done in the field of regenerative medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, led by Dr. Anthony Atala, was in the news this week:
World’s first tissue-engineered urethras hailed as success
A team at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has become the first in the world to successfully grow organs in a lab with the patient’s DNA. WFUBMC officials announced Monday that they successfully used regenerative tissue of five boys between the ages of 10 and 14 to replace damaged sections of their urinary tubes, or urethras. In each case, the urethra had been severely damaged.
Read more: CNN | BBC | ABC | WebMD | Winston-Salem Journal | WGHP | WXII | WFDD | NPR
Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney
Dr. Anthony Atala
At TED Talks on Monday, surgeon Anthony Atala of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center demonstrated an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney.
Work begins at veterinary center
Only in its infancy, the Virginia Tech/Wake Forest Center for Veterinary Regenerative Medicine (CVRM) has begun its work to better understand the treatment for animals. Current projects include: inducing kidney regeneration in cats with chronic kidney failure, creating wound-healing treatments for horses and treating weakened heart muscles (cardiomyopathy) in dogs.
Read more in our Old Gold and Black story of the week
Categories: Research & Discovery, University Announcements
Media Contact
Wake Forest News
media@wfu.edu
336.758.5237
