US to grow new ears, skin for military

Teams of university scientists backed by US government funds hope to grow new skin, ears, muscles and other body tissue for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $US250 million ($NZ317 million) effort aims to address the Pentagon's unprecedented challenge of caring for troops returning from the war zones with multiple traumatic injuries, many of which would have been fatal years ago. "We've had just over 900 people, men, some women with amputations of some kind or another since the start of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Many have also suffered burns, spinal cord injuries and vision loss. "Getting these people up to where they are functioning and reintegrated, employed, able to help their families and be fully participating members of society, this is our task," he said. Their goal is to develop within five years therapies for burn repair, wound healing without scarring, facial reconstruction and limb reconstruction or regeneration. "We're embarking on a new generation of research that's going to redefine the Army and military medicine as we know it today," he told reporters at the Pentagon.