In The News
Over thirty years, Dr. Bonilla’s patients and their families have shared their stories with major national and international news organizations — accounts of what the diagnosis meant, how they navigated it, and what reconstruction made possible for their children.
Dr. Bonilla’s work has been covered not only because families tell powerful stories, but because the underlying clinical work has been nationally and internationally newsworthy.
National coverage of the early clinical application of 3D bioprinted ear reconstruction — the first time a living bioprinted structure was implanted in a human patient for reconstructive purposes.
The Guardian, BBC News, Reuters, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, and Wired each reported on Dr. Bonilla as the clinical investigator in the 3D bioprinting trial.
CNN, NBC, CBS, Univision, and Telemundo appearances have brought Dr. Bonilla’s practice to English and Spanish-speaking families across the United States across three decades.
Families who want to review the academic and clinical record behind this coverage can also visit Dr. Bonilla’s publications page.
National Television — Network and Program Appearances
Many of the families in these segments had spent years looking for answers before finding their way to San Antonio. After their child’s surgery, they chose to share their experience publicly — not because anyone asked them to, but because they wanted other families in the same position to know that reconstruction was possible.
CNN covered the story from a scientific angle — the technical innovation behind natural rib cartilage reconstruction. Univision and Telemundo brought the stories to Spanish-speaking families who might otherwise not know that this kind of specialized care was available. Local affiliates told the stories of children from their own communities who traveled to San Antonio and came home transformed.
The families in these segments came to Dr. Bonilla after learning about what microtia is and how it develops, understanding their options through the rib cartilage reconstruction technique, and in some cases following Dr. Bonilla’s participation in the world’s first FDA-authorized 3D bioprinting clinical trial. Many arrived after years of searching — and found answers at the only exclusively pediatric microtia practice in the world.
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3D Bioprinting Clinical Trial — Television and Online Coverage
In June 2022, Dr. Bonilla performed one of the first procedures in an early FDA-authorized clinical trial of 3D-bioprinted living tissue ear reconstruction — a first-in-human study. The results were reported on the front page of The New York Times and covered by more than 90 outlets across six continents. The five segments below represent a cross-section of international broadcast and online coverage naming Dr. Bonilla directly.
Learn More About the Condition and Care Behind These Stories
- Many families in these segments had never heard of microtia before their child's birth. Learn what microtia is, what causes it, and what the four grades mean for a child's development and surgical path.
- Several segments feature children who received bone-conduction hearing devices before surgery. Understand how hearing loss in microtia works and why the inner ear is almost always completely normal.
- The surgical results shown in these news segments were achieved using Dr. Bonilla’s natural rib cartilage reconstruction technique — the same approach he has used exclusively for over 30 years.
- CNN and other outlets covered Dr. Bonilla’s participation in the world’s first FDA-authorized clinical trial of 3D-bioprinted ear cartilage for microtia — a landmark moment in reconstructive medicine.
- If you are a family who found this page after seeing one of these segments, start here — a guide written specifically for parents who just received a microtia diagnosis.
Before & After Photos
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