The nose will later be cut off, transplanted onto the man's face

Jan 23, 2013 12:33 GMT  ·  By

A team of researchers working with the University College London are now busy trying to restore a cancer patient's looks and sense of wellbeing by growing a nose on his arm and then transplanting it onto his face.

This British businessman lost his nose following his getting sick with cancer, yet the specialists working on this pioneering treatment are fairly convinced that their project will turn out to be a success and that the patient will soon have a new nose.

In order to engineer a new nose for this cancer patient, researchers had to first create a mold of his former one.

Later on, the mold got sprayed with a material whose properties make it possible for stem cells to adhere to it and grow.

Newsvine explains that, once this base structure was created, the specialists added millions of stem cells whom they provided with the nutrients and environmental conditions they needed in order for them to form the cartilage of the nose.

Meanwhile, a portion of the skin covering the 56-year-old patient's body was made to stretch by means of a balloon placed right under it.

Seeing how the researchers kept inflating this balloon on a regular basis, the skin eventually grew up to the point when replacing the balloon with the laboratory-made base nose structure was a fairly easy thing to do.

The engineered nose is now waiting patiently on the man's arm, and odds are it will not be long before the researchers decide that is has acquired all the nerves and blood vessels it needs in order for it to be successfully transplanted onto the patient's face.

“His nose was a little bit bent to the left and we asked if he wanted it straight but he said no, he wanted it exactly the same,” Professor Alex Seifalian joked about this innovative method of treatment.