Researchers create tissue-engineered human colon

It hasn’t got to the stage of actual implantation yet, but it is a proof of concept that a human colon can be grown in the lab. Here’s the press release. And from the LA Daily News:

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are celebrating a breakthrough: They have successfully grown a tissue-engineered human colon.

The accomplishment was 10 years in the making for lead investigator Dr. Tracy Grikscheit.

“I knew it should work,” Grikscheit says. “I knew we just needed to keep working at it, but the science was correct so that it would have to work.”