Anthony Atala

Anthony Atala (born July 14, 1958) is an American bioengineer, urologist, and pediatric surgeon. He is the W.H. Boyce professor of urology, the founding director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. His work focuses on the science of regenerative medicine: "a practice that aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body's own healthy cells".

Dr. Atala is the creator of the first 3D bioprinters (Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System or ITOP) and is one of the foremost leading figures in the field of organ printing. Atala and his team developed the first lab-grown organ (a bladder) to be implanted into a human. He is also developing experimental technology that can 3D print human tissue on demand.

As director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Atala leads a team of more than 400 researchers dedicated to developing cell therapies and engineering replacement tissues and organs for more than 40 different areas of the body.

Dr. Atala is editor of 3 journals and 25 books including ''Principles of Regenerative Medicine'', ''Foundations of Regenerative Medicine'', ''Methods of Tissue Engineering'' and ''Minimally Invasive Urology''. He has published over 800 journal articles and has received more than 250 national and international patents. Fifteen technology applications developed in Dr. Atala's laboratory have been used clinically.

He serves on the editorial board of the scientific journal ''Rejuvenation Research'', on the national board of advisors for High Point University and on the SENS Research Foundation's research advisory board. He is a founding member of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) from which he received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Atala is the director of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a federally funded institute created to apply regenerative medicine. Provided by Wikipedia