

Designer vaginas grown in lab Reuters







Professor Cinzia Marchese of



"She has got married and is living a normal life," says Marchese, a professor of clinical pathology and biotechnology whose study is published in the journal



The second operation was on a 17-year-old girl. The researchers took cells by biopsy from where her vagina should be and say the cells should grow in the lab to provide mucosal tissue, from which to 'build' a new vagina.



Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.



The two women have a condition called Mayer-von Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4000 to 5000 female infants.



Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. They often have a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth.



"Usually the syndrome is diagnosed when they are young and they try to have sexual intercourse for the first time and it hurts," says Marchese.



Women with MRKHS are often embarrassed to talk about it with their parents when they are young and often "live the rest of their lives with no normal sexual life, even though they are normal women with normal feelings", she says.



Alternative to surgery



So far, surgeons have been able to correct the condition by reconstructing a vagina out of grafted skin or from intestinal tissue. But the surgery is highly invasive, lengthy and painful. And it takes a long time to grow a normal mucosal wall.



Such women, if they have healthy ovaries, have been able to achieve pregnancy by artificial insemination but would then need a surrogate mother to carry the fertilised eggs and give birth.



But the Italian researchers take a different approach.



"What we do is to take a little biopsy of 0.5 centimetres from the place the vagina should be," Marchese says.



The researchers then used an enzyme to break down the tissue and let the immature cells, called stem cells, generate new, mucosal tissue on their own.



It takes about 15 days to get a thick enough layer to transplant into the patients, Marchese says.



Marchese studied using stem cells to build sheets of skin in vitro to provide skin grafts for burn victims at



"When I came back to Italy I modified this technique for mucosal vagina tissue," she says, adding that its success could be good news for women with cancer and other vaginal complaints. An Italian doctor has reconstructed vaginas for two women born with a rare congenital deformation, using their own cells to build vaginal tissue in the lab for the first time.Professor Cinzia Marchese of University Sapienza in Rome says a 28-year-old woman who underwent the first such operation a year ago now has a healthy vagina."She has got married and is living a normal life," says Marchese, a professor of clinical pathology and biotechnology whose study is published in the journal Human Reproduction The second operation was on a 17-year-old girl. The researchers took cells by biopsy from where her vagina should be and say the cells should grow in the lab to provide mucosal tissue, from which to 'build' a new vagina.Mucosal tissue is found inside the vagina, the mouth and elsewhere in the body and has important attributes distinct from ordinary skin.The two women have a condition called Mayer-von Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4000 to 5000 female infants.Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. They often have a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth."Usually the syndrome is diagnosed when they are young and they try to have sexual intercourse for the first time and it hurts," says Marchese.Women with MRKHS are often embarrassed to talk about it with their parents when they are young and often "live the rest of their lives with no normal sexual life, even though they are normal women with normal feelings", she says.So far, surgeons have been able to correct the condition by reconstructing a vagina out of grafted skin or from intestinal tissue. But the surgery is highly invasive, lengthy and painful. And it takes a long time to grow a normal mucosal wall.Such women, if they have healthy ovaries, have been able to achieve pregnancy by artificial insemination but would then need a surrogate mother to carry the fertilised eggs and give birth.But the Italian researchers take a different approach."What we do is to take a little biopsy of 0.5 centimetres from the place the vagina should be," Marchese says.The researchers then used an enzyme to break down the tissue and let the immature cells, called stem cells, generate new, mucosal tissue on their own.It takes about 15 days to get a thick enough layer to transplant into the patients, Marchese says.Marchese studied using stem cells to build sheets of skin in vitro to provide skin grafts for burn victims at Harvard Medical School with the technique's pioneer Professor Howard Green."When I came back to Italy I modified this technique for mucosal vagina tissue," she says, adding that its success could be good news for women with cancer and other vaginal complaints.





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