Scientists Grow New Ears for Children with Defect (They Literally Grew New Ears)

Using a combination of 3-D printing and cultured cells, scientists in China have grown new ears for five children born with a defect in one ear called microtia, which impacts the shape and function of the ear.

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers describe how they collected cartilage cells called chondrocytes from the children's microtia ears and used them to grow new ear-shaped cartilage. The new cartilage was based on 3-D-printed models of the children's healthy ears.
Then, the researchers transferred the newly engineered ears to the children and performed ear reconstruction, according to a study published this month in the journal EBioMedicine.
"We were able to successfully design, fabricate, and regenerate patient-specific external ears," the researchers wrote in their study, which followed each child for up to 2½ years.
"Nevertheless, further efforts remain necessary to eventually translate this prototype work into routine clinical practices," they wrote. "In the future, long-term (up to 5 years) follow-up of the cartilage properties and clinical outcomes ... will be essential."​

Article continues, read the rest> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/29/health/growing-ears-on-humans-study/index.html

 

Just to point the obvious

They mentioned "external ear"
Which means only the outer ear is being regenerated not the cochlea and anything related to the inner ear.

Regardless this is awesome what science is doing for microtia sufferers but it won't help most of us unfortunately.