Photo of Anthony  Atala

Anthony Atala

Anthony, MD, is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the W. Boyce Professor and Chair of Urology at Wake Forest University.  Dr. Atala is a practicing surgeon and a researcher in the area of regenerative medicine. His work focuses on growing human cells, tissues and organs. Dr. Atala led the team that developed the first lab-grown organ, a bladder, to be implanted into a human. In 2007, Dr. Atala and a team of Harvard University researchers showed that stem cells with enormous potential can be harvested from the amniotic fluid of pregnant women. Dr. Atala’s work was listed by Time Magazine in 2011 as one of the top 5 medical breakthroughs of the year, by the Huffington post in 2011 as one of 18 great ideas for the future, and by Time Magazine in 2013 as one of 5 discoveries that will change the future of organ transplants.

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