regenerative medicine

Medical science is fast approaching the point at which doctors will routinely transplant major organs grown from a patient's own cells.

No doubt, that would be huge. First, it would get around a major hurdle that now limits live-saving transplants. The waiting list for new organs is so long some patients die before they can get their operations.

Second, the body's immune system often rejects the new organ as an "invader." To combat this, patients must take strong drugs that can have some pretty severe side effects.

Doctors have said for decades that "regenerative medicine" would yield custom-made organs. And for just as long it's remained more theory than practice.

Until now...

Just last month, a team from Johns Hopkins said it had rebuilt an ear for a cancer patient using the woman's own tissue.

Not only that, but they actually "grew" the ear inside the woman's forearm.

"When my doctors told me reconstruction was possible, I thought it was too good to be true," said Sherrie Walter, a working mother of two. "It sounded like science fiction."

But it turned out to be science fact...