Category: vagina

US student is rescued from giant vagina sculpture in Germany

On By A.P.In Germany, Michael Moore, vaginaLeave a comment

In the space of 24 hours last week, two spectacular rescue operations were carried out in southern Germany.

Both involved men who had become trapped deep inside cave-like structures, and a large team working to set them free. But if explorer Johann Westhauser is expected to soon tell the world how he got trapped inside Germany’s deepest cave, an anonymous exchange student might prefer to keep quiet about the story of how he got into a tight spot.

On Friday afternoon, a young American in Tübingen had to be rescued by 22 firefighters after getting trapped inside a giant sculpture of a vagina. The Chacán-Pi (Making Love) artwork by the Peruvian artist Fernando de la Jara has been outside Tübingen University’s institute for microbiology and virology since 2001 and had previously mainly attracted juvenile sniggers rather than adventurous explorers.

According to De la Jara, the 32-ton sculpture made out of red Veronese marble is meant to signify “the gateway to the world”.

Police confirmed that the firefighters turned midwives delivered the student “by hand and without the application of tools”.

The mayor of Tübingen told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he struggled to imagine how the accident could have happened, “even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul.”

Thanks to Michael Moore for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/us-student-rescued-giant-vagina-sculpture-germany

Laboratory-grown vaginas implanted in patients

On By A.P.In Anthony Atala, Atlantida-Raya Rivera, Dr. Lutter, Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, Medicine, MRKH syndrome, regenerative medicine, Science, vagina1 Comment

Scientists have now reported the first human recipients of laboratory-grown vaginal organs. A research team led by Anthony Atala, M.D., director of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, describes in the Lancet long-term success in four teenage girls who received vaginal organs that were engineered with their own cells.

“This pilot study is the first to demonstrate that vaginal organs can be constructed in the lab and used successfully in humans,” said Atala. “This may represent a new option for patients who require vaginal reconstructive surgeries. In addition, this study is one more example of how regenerative medicine strategies can be applied to a variety of tissues and organs.”

The girls in the study were born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the vagina and uterus are underdeveloped or absent. The treatment could also potentially be applied to patients with vaginal cancer or injuries, according to the researchers.

The girls were between 13 and 18 years old at the time of the surgeries, which were performed between June 2005 and October 2008. Data from annual follow-up visits show that even up to eight years after the surgeries, the organs had normal function.

“Tissue biopsies, MRI scans and internal exams using magnification all showed that the engineered vaginas were similar in makeup and function to native tissue, said Atlantida-Raya Rivera, lead author and director of the HIMFG Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, where the surgeries were performed.

In addition, the patients’ responses to a Female Sexual Function Index questionnaire showed they had normal sexual function after the treatment, including desire and pain-free intercourse.

The organ structures were engineered using muscle and epithelial cells (the cells that line the body’s cavities) from a small biopsy of each patient’s external genitals. In a Good Manufacturing Practices facility, the cells were extracted from the tissues, expanded and then placed on a biodegradable material that was hand-sewn into a vagina-like shape. These scaffolds were tailor-made to fit each patient.

About five to six weeks after the biopsy, surgeons created a canal in the patient’s pelvis and sutured the scaffold to reproductive structures. Previous laboratory and clinical research in Atala’s lab has shown that once cell-seeded scaffolds are implanted in the body, nerves and blood vessels form and the cells expand and form tissue. At the same time the scaffolding material is being absorbed by the body, the cells lay down materials to form a permanent support structure — gradually replacing the engineered scaffold with a new organ.

Followup testing on the lab-engineered vaginas showed the margin between native tissue and the engineered segments was indistinguishable and that the scaffold had developed into tri-layer vaginal tissue.

Current treatments for MRHK syndrome include dilation of existing tissue or reconstructive surgery to create new vaginal tissue. A variety of materials can be used to surgically construct a new vagina — from skin grafts to tissue that lines the abdominal cavity. However, these substitutes often lack a normal muscle layer and some patients can develop a narrowing or contracting of the vagina.

The researchers say that with conventional treatments, the overall complication rate is as high as 75 percent in pediatric patients, with the need for vaginal dilation due to narrowing being the most common complication.

Before beginning the pilot clinical study, Atala’s team evaluated lab-built vaginas in mice and rabbits beginning in the early 1990s. In these studies, scientists discovered the importance of using cells on the scaffolds. Atala’s team used a similar approach to engineer replacement bladders that were implanted in nine children beginning in 1998, becoming the first in the world to implant laboratory-grown organs in humans. The team has also successfully implanted lab-engineered urine tubes (urethras) into young boys.

The team said the current study is limited because of its size, and that it will be important to gain further clinical experience with the technique and to compare it with established surgical procedures.

Co-researchers were James J. Yoo, M.D., Ph.D., and Shay Soker, Ph.D., Wake Forest Baptist, and Diego R. Esquiliano M.D., Reyna Fierro-Pastrana P.hD., Esther Lopez-Bayghen Ph.D., Pedro Valencia M.D., and Ricardo Ordorica-Flores, M.D.,Children’s Hospital Mexico Federico Gomez Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140410194326.htm

Thanks to Dr. Lutter for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Walk-in screaming vagina installed in previous Johannesburg women’s prison

On By A.P.In Braamfontein, Garden Route, Kubi Rama, Reshma Chhiba, South Africa, vagina, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, yoniLeave a comment

screaming vagina

A former women’s prison in South Africa which once held Winnie Mandela is now home to a 12m-deep screaming vagina.

Visitors are invited to walk through the artwork, by 30-year-old artist Reshma Chhiba, in a reaction against the former symbol of oppression.

As they do, the scarlet walls ring out with screams and laughter. The “yoni” – the Sanskrit word for vulva, or vagina – is skirted by acrylic wool imitation pubic hair over a tongue-like sponge walkway.

Chhiba said: “It’s a screaming vagina within a space that once contained women and stifled women. It’s revolting against this space… mocking this space, by laughing at it.”

The prison, in the central Johannesburg area of Braamfontein, dates back to 1892, and its Womens’ Prison held Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in 1958, when she was imprisoned for protesting against apartheid segregation, and again in 1976.

The artist said the work also opposes deeply entrenched patriarchal systems, and taboos around the vagina.

“You don’t often hear men talking about their private parts and feeling disgust or shamed,” as women often do, she said.

“And that alone speaks volumes of how we’ve been brought up to think about our bodies, and what I am saying here is that it’s supposed to be an empowering space.”

The artist also said the work aims at respect for the female body, in a country where 65,000 attacks on girls and women are reported annually. Before walking through, visitors have to remove their shoes.

“By talking off your shoes, essentially you are respecting it, making it a divine space, a sacred space,” said Chhiba.

Though the fine art graduate and practising Hindu insisted she “definitely did not make this work for the sake of controversy,” the work has – predictably – sparked a reaction.

Benathi Mangqaaleza, 24-year-old female security guard at the site, which also houses the country’s constitutional court, said: “It’s the most private part of my body. I grew up in the rural areas, we were taught not to expose your body, even your thighs let alone your vagina. I think it’s pornographic, I think they have gone too far.”

Kubi Rama, head of Gender Links, a lobby group promoting gender equality in southern Africa, praised the work, saying: “It is bringing the private into the public, that the woman’s body is not necessarily a private matter.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/walkin-vagina-installed-in-johannesburg-womens-prison-8792192.html