A team of genetic engineers from San Francisco has grown a prostate gland using mice cells. The breakthrough offers scientists the possibility of creating a drug that prevents prostate cancer.

The researchers from the California biotechnology firm Genentech extracted cells from some prostate tissue in mice and grafted these to a mouse kidney. In just a few weeks, the tissue grew into a full-size human prostate gland.

The research, details of which appeared in the journal Nature, will help scientists understand how stem cells trigger prostate cancer leading to ideas to stop the disease.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. It kills up to 10,000 British males and afflict 35,000 more each year.

Although a cultured prostate gland could be transplanted to patients to replace cancerous glands, the researchers did not intend to use the technology for surgery but rather for developing drugs against the disease.