Quote from: kdbrrw on October 06, 2014, 09:08:39 AM
This related article states specifically that since the procedure requires donor cells from the recipient's body, this would not work for ftms:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/05/laboratory-penises-test-on-men
That being said, it's still pretty cool that they have figured out this much.
You missed a
lot of subtext:
"For the structure, they wash a donor penis in a mild detergent to remove all donor cells. After two weeks a collagen scaffold of the penis is left, on to which they seed the patient's cultured cells – smooth muscle cells first, then endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels. Because the method uses a patient's own penis-specific cells, the technology will not be suitable for female-to-male sex reassignment surgery.
"
Our target is to get the organs into patients with injuries or congenital abnormalities," said Atala, whose work is funded by the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which hopes to use the technology to help soldiers who sustain battlefield injuries.
As a paediatric urological surgeon, Atala began his work in 1992 to help children born with genital abnormalities.
Because of a lack of available tissue for reconstructive surgery, baby boys with ambiguous genitalia are often given a sex-change at birth, leading to much psychological anguish in later life. "
Imagine being genetically male but living as a woman," he said. "It's a firmly devastating problem that we hope to help with."
The pure, naked fact is that we actually do have all of the necessary tissues. It might devastate so very many people to know this, but ALL babies have a penis during some point of gestation (typically around 12 weeks). Until of course, the gonads get involved and go one way or the other, to alter that fact. Yes, indeed, all little girls once had danglers (why do you think T can later make that same tissue, a microPENIS? Because it is the SAME tissue!). Until their gonads developed into ovaries, and it got pulled in and changed. And all little boys initially begin as girls, too (their outies were innies). For the same reasons. So quite literally, no, that is most definitely NOT the issue here.
Re-read the excerpt until it really sinks in. It's pretty obvious what the hang-up is.
Oh hell, let me flesh it out a bit. If they can employ this for infants with "ambiguous genitalia" (i.e. intersex) and no less with "lack of available tissue for reconstructive surgery"... there's no reason they can't do it for us too (after all, on T, we at LEAST then have roughly the same amount of available tissues down there as an infant male to work with). Chromosomes have nothing at all to do with what can, or cannot, be done with tissue cells. That's the only difference there is between our cells in that neighborhood, and a "genetic male", as they so eloquently stated it. And even if we didn't, guess what? That's not the only place to find those tissues. The body, in fact, recycles many cellular types elsewhere (i.e. the "smooth muscle"). No reason at all they can't use other tissues to fill in the gaps. But that wouldn't be necessary anyway, because again, we DO already have all of the necessary cellular types there for them to do this with, too. Even right down to the soft, spongy, erectile types (obviously).
To just as bluntly paraphrase... it's that they simply just won't; not that they can't.
They have no interest in this helping
us; but every interest in helping the "genetic males".
P.S. Atala is an first-class, callused arsehole.
However, I will now concede the point of fact that while that flimsy excuse isn't actually their problem... the vascular obstacles would indeed make this a more difficult (though, don't mistake "more difficult" as "impossible" because it wouldn't be) adaptation to us. In other words, we have a severe lack of arteries in that region, which would be necessary for this. Meaning, grafting would be necessary. But even that isn't their issue with us and this. Anyway. That's enough.
