Bladder Exstrophy Care & Support Group

Lab-grown organs are science fiction no longer

The once-fanciful dream of regrowing the heart and other failing organs has suddenly edged closer to reality: The first complex organ, the bladder, has been rebuilt in seven patients from living tissue cultivated in the lab. Photo: Wake Forest University School of Medicine/Associated Press.

First Bladders Grown in Lab Transplanted

Researchers have grown complete urinary bladders in a lab and transplanted them into patients, improving their health and achieving a Holy Grail of medicine: the first cultivation of working replacements for failing solid organs in people. Photo: Wake Forest University School of Medicine/Washington Post

Boston Children's Hospital's Center for Exstrophy

Learn more about bladder exstrophy through a Q&A in Children's health publication, Pediatric Views, with specialists Joseph Borer, MD, Alan Retik, MD, and Rosemary Grant, RN.