A newly engineered penis grown in a laboratory will soon be ready for human testing.

Dr. Anthony Atala, a urological surgeon and professor of regenerative surgeon, led his team of 300 scientists in developing the lab-grown penis.

The start of their success began years ago in 2008 when the team gathered around in Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine to see rabbits successfully mate.

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The mating was not out of pure interest only. The importance lay in the fact it was one of the first male rabbits to use a bioengineered penis that actually worked.

Dr. Atala had been working on the penises since 1992. The test saw 12 rabbits each fitted with an engineered penis. Eight showed proof of ejaculation while four successfully mated.

When they started the research, Dr. Atala stripped away a donor penis and soaked it in a mild detergent of enzymes to wash away the donor cells. This left the basic structure of the penis they were able to emulate.

Next they reseeded the structure with a patient's own cells grown in culture. It still took six years to successfully make the lab-grown penis available and ready for humans.

Atala and his group are now experimenting and assessing the structure and safety of the penises.

After all the tests and assuring its safety and efficacy, Dr. Atala and his team will also need to gain the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Before Dr. Atala and his colleagues' work, replacing penises was almost impossible.

One way was to construct a penis out of skin and muscle from the thigh and forearm. This process, however, was a hassle since the resulting penie was mostly always hard and difficult to conceal.

One other process saw a saline pump housed in the scrotum, allowing it to be inflated. 

It was also possible to transplant a penis to another person, but that came with psychological problems and the possibility of the patient rejecting the transplanted penis.

TagsAnthony Atala, Bioengineered Penis