Grow your own: the race to create body parts in the lab

From replacement skin to entire new organs, regenerative medicine is finally leaving its early scandals – and the controversial ‘earmouse’ – behind. Could it one day provide a cure for birth defects, blindness and diabetes?

Two years ago, Hassan’s father was faced with questions that he had no good answers for. “Why do I have this disease?” his seven-year-old son asked him. “Why do I have to live this life?”

Hassan was born with a rare genetic skin condition, called epidermolysis bullosa, that causes fragile, blistering skin. His first blister appeared when he was a week old, but soon after his family fled their native Syria and arrived as refugees in Germany, things got much worse. By June 2015, Hassan was admitted to hospital, critically ill, having lost the skin from almost the entire surface of his body. “Except for his face, hands and feet, he didn’t have any skin left,” his father recalls.

Related: Scientists grow replacement skin for boy suffering devastating genetic disorder

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Continue reading... December 05, 2017 at 10:29PM