He turns patients' cells to body parts

WFU scientist pushes his team to lead way to lead bioengineering

WINSTON-SALEM -- Expect to be startled by what grows inside the research institute Dr. Anthony Atala is building in this old tobacco town. Everything is man-made, but it's very much alive.

Human blood vessels pulse inside sterile plastic boxes. Hunks of bone grow to shapes resembling fingers. Strands of muscle get exercised by small metal arms.

Atala, a Wake Forest University doctor-scientist, is pushing hard to engineer functional organs, tissue and other body parts with patients' own cells. If he succeeds, North Carolina might find itself at the forefront of a high-impact, high-dollar biomedical field that offers hope to amputees, paralysis victims and people needing organ transplants.

Recruited from Harvard University in 2004, Atala is already a science star. A urologist by training, he disclosed this year that he had safely implanted the first bioengineered replacement organs -- bladders -- into disabled children and teenagers.

Three national science magazines labeled his achievement a top breakthrough for 2006 because of its potential to save lives and lessen suffering. For example, if Atala's field improves on organ transplantation, it could relieve the organ shortage. Seventeen Americans die every day waiting for a transplant.

So Wake Forest is pouring millions of dollars into Atala's Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Private investors are betting tens of millions more on a Pennsylvania company, Tengion, trying to move Atala's bladders into the medical marketplace. Scientists from other states are moving to Winston-Salem to work on Atala's team.

"Tony is a visionary. People want to be involved with him. He's willing to do what others think is impossible," said Gail Naughton, a scientist-entrepreneur who has known Atala since 1991.

Naughton believes that Atala might create a leading research center in downtown Winston-Salem, far from the bioengineering hubs in Massachusetts and California.

Atala, 48, slight and soft-spoken, makes no predictions when any project in his large new lab will produce treatments. Harnessing nature to fabricate complex organs such as kidneys or human hearts will be difficult, he stresses.

"We have to go slowly. These technologies we are dealing with have a lot of unknowns. We must make sure they are safe," said Atala, who still sees patients while building his institute.

Finding right cues

Atala started work 16 years ago on making a bladder -- the relatively uncomplicated, hollow sac that is among the simplest human organs. He made real progress, he said, when his laboratory identified cells within bladders programmed to repair injuries.

These "progenitor cells" are a wellspring in regenerative medicine research, along with sometimes controversial stem cells. Researchers all over the world are learning how to nurture progenitor and stem cells to reproduce all sorts of human body parts.

Over time, Atala's laboratory found the right mix of nutrients and chemical signals that nudged his cells to form healthy bladder tissue. Scientists made molds of bladders from a biodegradable material and sprayed the molds with growth solutions carrying the cells for an inner lining. Later they sprayed again with cells for an outer lining. The cells covered the mold and formed tissue.

"The body knows what to do," Atala said. "We are trying to re-create what happens during normal development by putting in the right cues."

Atala made bladders first for animals, including dogs. Then he was ready for the human test. Over seven years, he grew seven human bladders and implanted them in seven children at a Boston hospital. Each patient had spina bifida, a birth defect that damages the nervous system and other body parts, including the bladder. Malfunctioning bladders threaten kidneys, which in turn can threaten lives.