The Fifth Elephant

22

There was a famous tissue engineering experiment done at the University of Massachusetts (MIT), in which a biodegradable, ear-shaped scaffold was impregnated with human cartilage cells, and then successfully grafted onto the back of a mouse.

The resulting picture of the living mouse with the ear-like structure on his back became very well known, although the story is often misconstrued as involving genetic engineering or the transplantation of an actual human ear, neither of which was the case.