Artificial Penis! What will they think of next?

[Tom Fletcher (imported)]

http://health.msn.com/centers/mensexual ... 2&GT1=8165

Scientists Create Artificial Penis

Research with rabbits could offer treatment for human impotence, study suggests

By E.J. Mundell, HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) -- Success with randy, replicating rabbits suggests that an "artificial penis" made from a patient's own penile cells might someday help men challenged by tough-to-treat impotence.

In the study, adult male rabbits with severely damaged penises received a graft of specially engineered penile tissue. The animals then re-grew full penises that functioned normally -- even to the point of successfully impregnating females.

"This is very exciting -- the researchers have been working on this for a long time in a variety of different organs. It's not yet clinically available, but if it works and proves safe and effective, it would be a tremendous advance," said Dr. Ira Sharlip, a spokesman for the American Urological Association and a clinical professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sharlip was not involved in the study, which was led by Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. His team reported its findings Tuesday at the American Urological Association annual meeting, in Atlanta.

Drugs like Cialis, Levitra and Viagra have revolutionized the treatment of impotence for millions of men over the past decade. However, some forms of erectile dysfunction remain very difficult to treat.

A condition called "corporal fibrosis" -- where the tubes of penile "spongy tissue" that maintain erection are gradually replaced by inactive, fibrous scar tissue -- remains largely untreatable. The disorder occurs when the penis' sensitive spongy-tissue cells don't get the oxygen they need to survive, usually because of a chronic reduction in blood flow.

"It's relatively common in men with diabetes and various forms of vascular disease, or men who've previously had infections -- usually infections of a penile prosthesis," Sharlip said. "There are men who have such severe fibrosis that nothing can be done to restore their natural erection function, other than to implant a surgical prosthesis," he added.

However, advances in biotechnology have spurred research into replacing dead tissues with new, living tissues grown in a laboratory using the patient's own cells. According to Sharlip, Atala has long been a pioneer in this field, working not just with penile tissues but with tissues from other organs.

In their latest study, the Wake Forest researchers first used standard biopsy techniques to harvest smooth-muscle and blood-vessel cells from the penises of healthy adult male rabbits. In the lab, the researchers used these cells to "seed" a special nutrient-rich collagen matrix. Over time, the cells multiplied within this framework to grow into new penile tissue.

Next, the team surgically removed all of the natural spongy tissue from the penises of the donor rabbits. They then grafted in the engineered tissue.

Atala's group tracked the rabbits' penile growth and function over the next one, three and six months.

The researchers found that the new penises were similar in structure to natural rabbit penises. The "artificial penis" also achieved and maintained erectile pressures equal to those of normal rabbit penises.

Next came the real test, as the rabbits that had received the new penises were presented with sexually mature females.

Things proceeded just as nature intended, the researchers said.

"Mating activity in the animals with the engineered [penis] resumed by 1 month after implantation," they reported. "Presence of sperm was confirmed in the vaginal vault of the female partners, and all females conceived and delivered healthy pups."

Sharlip cautioned this is a preliminary study involving animals. But he said that "rabbit tissue is fairly similar to human tissue. If it can be done in rabbits, it probably can be done in humans."

Doctors who treated men with corporal fibrosis in this way would still face another hurdle, however: Treating the underlying cause of the fibrosis itself.

"There's the question of how you restore that needed blood supply," Sharlip said. "You may be able to restore the natural spongy tissue of these erection chambers, but in a patient with severe corporal fibrosis you also have to get the blood supply to come back into the new, restored tissue." Without that steady source of oxygen, any implant might meet the same fate as the tissue it had replaced, he said.

Still, the advance does mark one of the few breakthroughs against the disorder in years, Sharlip said. And he added that success in tissue engineering has implications "not only for the treatment of erectile dysfunction but in the world of medicine in general."

"If we could re-grow and replace worn-out tissue [in other body parts], that would have tremendous implications," Sharlip said.

[Hash (imported)]

Amazing! When this is finally perfected, I bet there's a rise in penectomies. You get your penis cut off, which certain men fantasize about, then with the remaining tissue, you get a new one manufactured. If they can do this with the penis, will they also be able to do this with testicles? Assuming that they will be able to someday, I can see more men getting castrated, because they know that they'll be able to regrow new ones. Wild. It'll give rise to a whole new industry. Hash

[SplitDik (imported)]

What's surprising is that the new tissue is able to achieve same erectile pressure -- that's the difficult part of penis tissue transplantation.

Actually, we all know the big money will be for penis enlargement. Imagine being relatively unlimited in adding compatible, functional penis length!

It could be great for FTM transexuals too -- I imagine clitoral cells could be used to create a proper penis as well.

[tugon (imported)]

What's surprising is that the new tissue is able to achieve same erectile pressure -- that's the difficult part of penis tissue transplantation.

Actually, we all know the big money will be for penis enlargement. Imagine being relatively unlimited in adding compatible, functional penis length!

It could be great for FTM transexuals too -- I imagine clitoral cells could be used to create a proper penis as well.

Can you add length if you have no more skin to strectch over all that new erectile tissue?

[Tom Fletcher (imported)]

Tugon,

They have long been able to 'stretch' skin to create additional coverage. Burn victims and hair transplant patients have often had small balloons implanted just under the skin in some desirable part of their body. The body reacts by growing more skin to accomodate the balloon. Then the surgeons remove the extra skin and graft it where they want it.

I think the problem would be to make sure any new skin was as sensitive as what was originally there.

K: Thanks for adding the text.

[Astromancer (imported)]

Google up the New Scientist web page or Better Humans. They're working on 3D Bio Printers!

It seems likely that in less than thirty years that building new organs to order will be commonplace. Probably as expensive as transexual surgury.

I would predict that since removing the old organs will be necessary before attaching new ones, those wishing to go nullo will simply ignore step two.

Since male nullification, both castration and penectomy, would be fully reversible, they would be less important. Those losing the works by accident, disease, or violence, will be restored to normalacy. This will alter the view people have of nollos and eunuchs. The general view will be, "They'll get tired of that soon enough."

[Paolo]

They should spend their time building something useful - like sinuses that WORK right.

[Mac (imported)]

if the penis and testicles are defective and don't work just remove them. Don't be concerned about regrowing them. The next thing that they will want to do is grow a penis on a girl.

[Astromancer (imported)]

The next thing that they will want to do is grow a penis on a girl.

Something for everyone!

When you can rework your body to taste , some interesting tastes will show up.

Try this thought. I'm an intact male, and wish to stay this way, but I'd love to get pregnant and give live birth. Picture me, as I would prefer to be (some best case cross between Chris Meloni, Gene Kelly, and James Garner) eight months pregers! The reaction of the room? Questions about who's my partner, what name I've chosen, when's the birth due.

A scene more or less like this will propably play out before the year 2100AD. All conventional catagories of gender, sexual orientation, and even physical sex, with become passe over the next century.