News Health & Medicine

Building a Bladder: Patients for the first time benefit from lab-grown organs

By Carolyn Gramling

- More than 2 years ago

The humble bladder is now the world’s first bioengineered internal organ to work in people. Several years after surgery, seven young patients who received lab-grown bladders are doing just fine, according to a new report.

HOMEGROWN. Bladder and muscle cells thrive on a synthetic scaffolding (top), which surgeons then attach to the undamaged part of the original bladder (bottom).