Lab-grown vaginas? Already a thing. Lab-grown penises? Science is working on it:
In their trials, researchers make “scaffolds” of rabbit penises by washing donor organs in detergent to kill all the living cells. This process leaves a collagen frame that can be seeded with penile cells from the recipient rabbit. The lab-grown penis is specifically rich with cultivated muscle and endothelial cells, which are essential for erectile function. The cell cultivation and scaffold creation takes weeks, but in the end, the rabbits who had new penises grafted onto their bodies gained sexual and reproductive ability. Indeed, when 12 of the newly-phallused males were put into cages with females, they mated within a minute, resulting in four pregnancies.
“The rabbit studies were very encouraging,” said [Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine] director Anthony Atala in an interview with the Guardian. Atala is an emerging icon of biomedical futurism, especially after his 2011 Ted Talk about 3D printing kidneys. He’s optimistic that lab-grown penises will be available to men in five years, but acknowledges that there are a lot of hurdles to clear before then.
If ever there was a fortune to be made … but no word yet on whether the researchers will “grow a pair” as well.
The Dish 