Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a relatively unknown genetic condition in which girls are born either without a vagina or one that is only party formed. Prior to the work of a team at North Carolina’s Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, led by Dr. Anthony Atala, the only real options for these girls was to either live with their condition or cosmetically rectify it with skin grafts. But work conducted since the early 1990’s, has yielded some astonishing results.
Source: New Scientist
Early research involved rabbits, where cultured cells were grown on a biodegradable scaffolds were implanted into the animals where they would then grow into what was a near fully functioning vagina. The technique was applied to rectify the condition in four girls ranging an age from 13 to 18. Cells were taken from the subjects’ vulva, grown on a customized scaffold and implanted into the body when the cells were mature enough.
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Amazingly all four girls have fully developed and functioning organs, and annual checks report they appear to have full function of them too! This is incredible news for women who may have suffered trauma, or cancer and opens the way for the technique to be tested in other scenarios. Dr. Atala’s team has already been working on the urethras of boys and has been successful in this area. While the test subjects have been minimal, the success rate was perfect. It will be interesting to see what future results may yield and also the other applications this technique can be applied to in the future
