--- title: Researchers at Duke Announce Breakthrough After Growing Muscle Tissue description: Researchers At Duke University announce breakthrough after growing responsive muscle tissue canonical: https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/ author: David Stout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-14T05:02:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:33:12.927Z article:section: Health og:title: Duke Scientists Grow Muscle Tissue in Lab og:description: The breakthrough will hopefully allow doctors to begin prescribing personalized medicine. og:url: https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Duke Scientists Grow Muscle Tissue in Lab twitter:description: The breakthrough will hopefully allow doctors to begin prescribing personalized medicine. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Duke Researchers Hail Breakthrough After Growing Muscle Tissue in Lab > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Jan 14, 2015 5:02 AM UTC by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Jan 14, 2015 5:02 AM UTC Scientists at Duke University announced this week that human skeletal muscle has been successfully grown in the laboratory that is able to react to stimuli just like native tissue. The lab-grown muscle will allow researchers to study the effects that drugs and disease have on muscle tissue without having to endanger the health of a potential patient, reports [Science Daily](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113154025.htm). “The beauty of this work is that it can serve as a test bed for clinical trials in a dish,” says Nenad Bursac, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University. Bursac said the development would hopefully allow doctors to begin prescribing personalized medicine to patients in the future. “We can take a biopsy from each patient, grow many new muscles to use as test samples and experiment to see which drugs would work best for each person,” he explained. \[[_Science Daily_](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150113154025.htm)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/"},"headline":"Duke Researchers Hail Breakthrough After Growing Muscle Tissue in Lab","datePublished":"2015-01-14T05:02:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:33:12.927Z","description":"Advancement may form bedrock for future personalized medicines","url":"https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/","keywords":["Research","medicine","Drugs","patients"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Stout","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-stout/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/research/","name":"Research"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3666712/duke-university-science-breakthrough-muscle-tissue-medicine/","name":"Duke Researchers Hail Breakthrough After Growing Muscle Tissue in Lab"}}]}] ```