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1 Patients are left with less tissue to function as intestine, which can complicate things even further. Some studies have also linked the procedure to a slightly higher risk of cancer.

Performing this procedure in older adults, who have relatively fewer years left to develop complications, is one thing. But what about the children who could live with jerry-rigged bladders for decades? This is a question Anthony Atala asked himself as a surgical resident training in pediatric urology. "These children had an 80-year life expectancy," he says. "They are going to have a lot of problems."

The ideal solution, Atala reasoned, was to provide children with new tissue from their bladders, not their intestines. This meant growing a vast amount of new, autologous bladder cells. In 1990, out of...