Welsh 10-year-old to become first Brit to receive 3D-bioprinted ear grown in lab

A ten-year-old from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, south Wales, looks set to become the first person in Britain to benefit from a 3D-bioprinted ear. Radiyah Miah was born without a properly formed left ear as a result of the congenital condition microtia. Researchers from the University of Swansea now hope they will be able to replace that with a lab-grown ear developed with cutting edge biotechnology after winning a £2.5 million grant to fund the groundbreaking endeavour.

Young Radiyah is at the top of a list of qualifiers for the pioneering new procedure that involves creating a living inner structure for an ear from a sample of cartilage cells taken from the nose or another suitable source. It is expected to take around four years until clinical trials take place but the process can at least start thanks to the funds to finance the process being donated by the Scar Free Foundation and Health and Care Research Wales.

The project is being led by Iain Whitaker, a professor of plastic surgery at Swansea University Medical School. His team is leading research into new techniques to create cartilage that can be used in reconstructive surgery of the face without highly invasive and painful surgery.

Current techniques would require the cartilage used to reconstruct an ear to be taken from the top of the rib cage and leave major scars there and on the skull. Professor Whitaker instead wants to develop, or ‘grow’, the fully formed ear in lab using revolutionary new 3D bioprinting techniques. A lab-grown ear could mean Radiyah is scar-free after surgery.

The technique aims to use 3D printing using ‘ink’ consisting of stem cells taken from the patient, which avoids potential auto-immune complications, that become cartilage. 3D printed to the correct ‘design’ that cartilage can form a new nose or ear.

The UK is aiming to become a leader in the field of regenerative medicine and if the Swansea University team succeed they would be one of the first in the world to create and successfully transplant a lab-grown ear.

Around 1 person in 100 in the UK has a significant facial difference resulting from an accident, disease or from birth that could potentially be rectified by the new 3D bioprinting technique. Radiyah’s father Rana commented on news his daughter is top of the list to take part in the first clinical trials that a new ear without major scarring could help her confidence as she grows up adding:

 “Radiyah would like to tie her hair up and to pierce her ears.”