Anthony Atala, MD, FACS, of Winston-Salem, NC, was presented with the 2022 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) at a dinner held in his honor June 10 in Chicago, IL. He is the George Link Jr. Professor and Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) and the W. H. Boyce Professor and Chair of Urology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, both in Winston-Salem.
The international surgical award from the ACS honors living surgeons who are innovators of a new development or technique in any field of surgery. It is made possible through a gift from Julius H. Jacobson II, MD, FACS, and his wife Joan. Dr. Jacobson is a general vascular surgeon known for his pioneering work in the development of microsurgery.
“I am truly humbled and honored to receive this award,” Dr. Atala said. “The things that were accomplished [for myself] with this research are not really important. What is important is what we do for our patients, and—more important—what we do for each other.”
A Career of Innovation
Dr. Atala is a pediatric urologist, researcher, professor, and mentor who is renowned for developing foundational principles for regenerative medicine research, which holds great promise for people who require tissue substitution and reconstruction. Dr. Atala and his team successfully implanted the world’s first laboratory-grown bladder in 1999.
His remarkable work has expanded, and today, WFIRM is a leader in translating scientific discovery into regenerative medicine clinical therapies. He currently leads an interdisciplinary team of more than 450 researchers and physicians. Beyond many other world firsts, WFIRM also has developed 15 clinically used technology-based applications, including muscle, urethra, cartilage, reproductive tissues, and skin. The Institute is working on more than 40 tissues and organs.
Through Dr. Atala’s vision, ingenuity, and leadership, the WFIRM team has developed specialized 3-D printers to engineer tissues. This work is accomplished by using cells to create various tissues and organs, including miniature organs called organoids, to create body-on-a-chip systems. Dr. Atala and his team also discovered a stem cell population derived from both the amniotic fluid and the placenta, which are being used for clinically relevant research applications.
Dr. Atala’s theory is that every cell within the human body should be capable of regeneration. What reproduces naturally inside the body should also have the same capabilities of reproduction outside of the body. According to Dr. Atala, “The key benefit to the approach of cell and tissue regeneration is that a patient will not reject their own cells or tissue, which is always a concern related to traditional organ match transplantation.”
