Delay in push for new breasts after cancer surgery A push to commercialise a world-first technique to regrow breasts after cancer surgery has been put on ice by its Melbourne pioneers. A PUSH to commercialise a world-first technique to regrow breasts after cancer surgery has been put on ice by its Melbourne pioneers. Research to improve the Neopec technique - which uses a woman's stem cells to regrow the fat in her breasts following a mastectomy - will continue at the O'Brien Institute after it proved last year the groundbreaking treatment could work. However, the Neopec company - established by the institute in 2009 with a $2.95 million state government grant to transfer the clinical trials to the marketplace - has been "put on a shelf" while further laboratory work continues. O'Brien Institute director Professor Wayne Morrison said that while human trials proved the Neopec breast regrowth concept worked, the results were not yet strong enough to move to commercialise the process or push for corporate backing. "We have confidently shown that the concept of a chamber to drive growth of tissue does work, however the fact was it wasn't consistent," Prof Morrison said. We believe we need quite a bit more research. In October, the institute revealed it had successfully grown breast tissue in one of five women.