vacanti

Vacanti refers to a surname associated with early demonstrations in tissue engineering, most famously the Vacanti mouse. In the late 1990s, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital led by Dr. Charles Vacanti and Dr. Joseph Vacanti implanted a biodegradable scaffold shaped like a human ear on a living mouse. The scaffold, often described as made from a polyglycolic acid–based material, was seeded with cow cartilage cells. Over several weeks, the cells produced cartilage that formed an ear-shaped structure, providing a striking in vivo demonstration of tissue growth on a scaffold.

The experiment attracted widespread media attention and sparked ethical discussions about animal welfare and the implications of growing tissues and organs. While the ear was not functional or intended for transplantation, the work is regarded as a conceptual milestone in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. It helped highlight the potential for designing scaffolds and cell-based approaches to create living tissues, contributing to ongoing research in cartilage, bone, skin, and organ regeneration.

In subsequent years, the field progressed with advances in stem cell biology, three-dimensional bioprinting, decellularized matrices, and improved scaffold materials. Clinical applications that emerged later favored autologous tissues and safer, more established methods, rather than in vivo engineered cartilage on animals. The Vacanti name remains associated with foundational ideas in tissue engineering and the ethical discourse surrounding such experiments.