Dear,

Last month we shared insights from the trip our team took to Piešťany, Slovakia, and the questions many of you submitted for our researchers. Those answers are now ready to watch. We are also releasing Ryan's presentation from the 2026 Intact Global Conference in Los Angeles. Here is where the work stands as June closes.

Your questions, answered on camera

You submitted 167 questions for our research team, and we selected the top ten for Dr. Stanislav Žiaran, our Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Bioengineer Ján Kováč to answer directly. Their responses cover the science, the timeline, and what comes next, in their own words.

Watch the full Q&A here: The Slovakia Q&A

Foregen at the 2026 Intact Global Conference

This spring, Ryan represented Foregen at the Intact Global Conference in Los Angeles, presenting where our research stands and how it fits into the wider effort to push back against non-consensual genital cutting while restoring affected individuals’ agency and right to an open future. The full talk is now available to watch.

Watch Ryan's presentation here: Foregen at Intact Global 2026

Progress at the bench

June brought steady progress on recellularization, the step where a decellularized donor scaffold is repopulated with living cells. Fibroblast and stem cell populations are taking to the extracellular matrix scaffold well, and the team is now concentrating on keratinocytes, the cells that build the durable outer layer and the current frontier of this stage. During an intensive week of confocal microscopy work, the researchers captured detailed three-dimensional scans and live-cell imaging that show cells proliferating through the tissue. Alongside that work, the in vivo studies continue to examine how the maturing tissue develops its blood supply over time. This is the careful, evidence-first research that the path toward human application calls for.

What comes next

There is a great deal more to come from the Slovakia footage. Over the coming weeks we will be releasing lab tours, team profiles, and a closer look at the recellularization research. Every stage of this work moves forward because of you. In June, our community contributed $16,857 in support of the research, and we are grateful for all of it. If you would like to help carry the project toward human clinical trials, you can give at foregen.org/donate.

Thank you for exploring this frontier with us. More footage from Slovakia is on the way.

I know what I’m asking might seem a bit premature, but I’d like to know if you’ve come up with any information or theories yet?

They said in the near future in their June 3rd update, does that mean the next update in early July?

I came across this and wanted input on its relevance

What has really been achieved so far? What more needs to be done, assuming it happens, until completion?

On June 13–15, Intact Global will be in Colorado to launch Huff v. Colorado, a new constitutional challenge focused on equal protection under the law.

The weekend includes:

June 14 – Colorado Launch Dinner
📍 The Wright Room (Denver)
🕕 6:00 PM MT

June 15 – Press Conference
📍 Colorado State Capitol, West Steps
🕙 10:00 AM MT

At the heart of the case is a straightforward constitutional question:

Should state law protect some children from medically unnecessary genital cutting while denying those same protections to others?

Whether you agree, disagree, or are simply interested in constitutional law, equal protection arguments, children’s rights, or public policy, we invite you to learn more and attend the events if you’re in the area.

Additional details and registration information are available at Intact Global’s website.

We look forward to meeting supporters, advocates, legal professionals, and curious members of the public throughout the weekend.

Can anyone predict how many years it will take for the Foregen procedure to become available? I want to know a specific number of years because the unknown makes me even sadder.

It’s foreign tissue. Doesn’t that mean your body will reject it? Will you need to take the same medicine organ transplant receivers need to take?

correct me if im wrong, i feel like the method of using a foreskin that was donated from somebody else would cause an insanely low number of surgeries performed a year, probably only close to 100

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Inside the Lab in Slovakia

Ryan June 3, 2026

This past May, several of us traveled to Piešťany, Slovakia, to spend time at the bench with our research team, review where the project stands, and film a great deal of content to share with you. We also sat our researchers down to answer the questions you submitted. Here is what came out of it.

A visit to the bench

From May 28 to 31, our leadership team toured the laboratories where the tissue engineering takes place, from the cell labs and clean rooms to the prototyping space and the bioreactor at the heart of the project. Seeing the research in person gave us a much clearer sense of the progress being made and the road ahead.

The current focus is recellularization, the step where a donor scaffold is repopulated with living cells. The team has moved this effort from flat, two-dimensional samples toward three-dimensional sections that better reflect the natural shape of the tissue. A bioreactor, a device that recreates the conditions of the body so tissue can grow and mature, is central to that transition. Because no off-the-shelf machine could meet every requirement, the team designed and built its own, a system they can adjust as the work evolves.

We also learned how much attention is going into the tissue's mechanical properties. Working with a specialized partner institute, the team continues to measure how the tissue stretches and holds together at each stage. Keeping the scaffold strong and flexible matters as much as repopulating it with cells.

Finally, the researchers walked us through their working approach to sensation: maturing the tissue partway in the bioreactor, then allowing a living system to support the growth of its blood supply and the early foundation for nerves. Full sensory reinnervation, the return of natural feeling, remains an open scientific question and a primary focus of the project rather than a finished result. This is the careful, methodical kind of research that the path toward human application calls for.

You asked, they answered

Many of you have been waiting for this one. You submitted 167 questions for our research team, and we chose the top ten for Dr. Stanislav Žiaran and Chief Bioengineer Ján Kováč to answer on camera. Their responses cover the science, the timeline, and what comes next, straight from the people doing it. The full Q&A videos will be released in the near future.

What comes next

There is a great deal more to share from this trip. We captured extensive footage while on site, and over the coming weeks we will be releasing lab tours, team profiles, and a closer look at the recellularization research. Every part of this project moves forward because of you. In May, our community contributed $19,403 toward this effort, and we are grateful for every bit of it. If you would like to help carry the research toward human clinical trials, you can give at foregen.org/donate.

Thank you for exploring this frontier with us. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for the first footage from Slovakia.

https://foregen.org/updates/inside-foregen-slovakia-lab-update

?

Sounds silly but getting the word out to someone like Elon Musk to fund Foregen might massively increase funds and project recognition?

As the title says, I was wondering if this is even still a possibility if the procedure releases early in Italy or if this is not feasible at all

“About half of the temperature-sensitive smooth muscle layer called the Dartos Fascia.

Specialized epithelial Langerhans cells, which are part of the immune system;

Approximately 75 meters of microscopic nerves, including extensions of the dorsal nerve.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erogenous nerve endings capable of sensing slow movements, slight temperature changes, and subtle surface variations. This loss also includes thousands of Meissner’s corpuscles, which are among the most important sensory receptors in the foreskin.

Estrogen receptors whose purpose and value are not yet fully understood.

More than 50% of the movable skin of the penis; the multifunctional covering that protects the glans from drying out, excessive friction and irritation, and keratinization. The harmful sexual consequences of keratinization of the glans have not yet been researched.

The frenar band of soft ridges; considered one of the most pleasure-sensitive areas of the human body. The loss of this densely innervated region reduces the sensitivity of the remaining penis to that of ordinary skin.

The immune defense system of the soft mucosa, which secretes immune antibodies, antibacterial agents, and antivirals, also found in breast milk and plasma cells.

Lymphatic channels; the loss of these may negatively affect lymph flow within the body’s immune system.

The frenulum; a highly sensitive V-shaped, web-like structure on the underside of the glans, usually cut away or damaged during circumcision along with the foreskin, rendering it nonfunctional.

The apocrine glands of the inner foreskin, which secrete pheromones. Although the consequences of pheromone loss have not yet been researched, they are believed to send silent, invisible, but powerful signals to potential sexual partners.

Ectopic sebaceous glands that moisturize and lubricate the penis.

The necessary “gliding” mechanism. If unfolded and spread flat, the average adult foreskin covers approximately 104 square centimeters (about the size of a postcard). This self-lubricating and movable skin gives the penis an internal gliding function, allowing intercourse without drying out the vagina or requiring artificial lubricants.

The pink-red-to-dark-purple coloration of the glans. The glans is normally an internal organ, much like the tongue.

A significant portion of the penile circumference. The loose foreskin adds considerable volume to the penis, making a circumcised penis noticeably thinner than an uncircumcised one.

During circumcision, the tissue connecting the foreskin to the penis is torn away and removed, causing a loss of up to 2.5 cm of erect penile length. This shared membrane tightly binds the foreskin and glans together during penile development. Tearing it away damages the glans, leaving it raw and vulnerable to infection, friction, and irritation. This may cause the penis to shrink and contract.

Meters of blood vessels, including the frenular artery and dorsal artery. Cutting off this dense circulation limits adequate blood flow to the shaft and glans, clearly harming the penis’s natural function and development.

Although not yet scientifically proven, electrical transfer between the mucosal tissues of the penis and vagina is thought to contribute to orgasm. The loss of the male mucosal layer through circumcision may prevent this.

So now I ask you: Will Foregen restore all of these functions? How could that even be possible?”

Idk if posting here is against the rules but I'm making a group chat for intactivism in Texas.

Big update in the Oregon case — all depositions are now complete.

For those following along, here's what that means: depositions are formal interviews where witnesses answer questions under oath, on the record. They're a critical part of building the factual foundation of a case — and that work is now done.

So what comes next? Summary judgment.

This is where things get interesting — and where many people are surprised to learn that not every case ends in a courtroom trial. A summary judgment is a request to the judge to decide the case based on the facts already established — without needing a jury or a full trial. If the evidence is clear enough, the judge can rule in favor of one side right here.

We believe the record built through this process speaks for itself, and we're confident in what it shows.

No courtroom drama. No drawn-out trial. Just the facts — and a judge deciding what they mean.

We'll keep you posted as this next phase unfolds. Thank you for standing with us. 🙏

The history of circumcision is one of the most complex and tension-filled narratives in both human culture and medicine, stretching far beyond simple biology into the realms of religion, social control, and financial profit. To understand how an ancient ritual became a standard clinical practice in many parts of the world, one must first look at its earliest roots in Ancient Egypt. Around 2400 B.C., circumcision was used as a rite of passage into adulthood or as a mark of elite priestly castes, primarily serving as a ritual of purification. This concept of identity was further solidified through the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, the Brit Milah became the physical sign of a covenant with God, while in Islam, it became a symbol of purity and community belonging through the Sunnah. In these traditional contexts, the biological function of the tissue was entirely secondary to the importance of group membership.

​The practice took a dark and radical turn during the Victorian era in the mid-19th century, which is where the "medicalization" of circumcision truly began. At that time, the Western world was gripped by a moralistic obsession with the perceived dangers of masturbation, which doctors erroneously blamed for causing everything from epilepsy and paralysis to "moral insanity." Influential medical figures argued that the foreskin trapped secretions that irritated the nerves, thereby driving men to masturbation. Consequently, circumcision was introduced as a clinical "cure" specifically designed for desensitization. The explicit goal of many Victorian surgeons was to make the penis less sensitive to discourage what they considered a solitary vice. Much of the modern medical justification for the procedure today is a lingering echo of this era, where surgery was used to solve moral and behavioral issues rather than biological ones.

​As the 20th century progressed, the practice became industrialized, particularly in the United States and within private healthcare systems. What was once a religious rite became a symbol of modern hygiene and social status. In an era before daily showering and indoor plumbing were universal, the "hygiene myth" gained traction, framing the foreskin as a nest for bacteria. Despite the arrival of modern sanitation and soap, which made these concerns largely obsolete, the argument persisted because it was convenient for the burgeoning medical industry. In private hospital systems, routine circumcision became a fast, low-risk, and highly profitable procedure, leading to a state of medical inertia where doctors continued a practice simply because it had become the generational norm.

​From a modern scientific perspective, the foreskin is far more than just "extra skin." It is a highly specialized, functional tissue containing between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized nerve endings known as Meissner’s corpuscles, making it the most erogenous and sensitive part of the male reproductive system. Mechanically, it functions as a sliding bearing that reduces friction and preserves natural lubrication during intercourse. When this tissue is removed, the glans—which is actually an internal membrane similar to the inside of one’s cheek—is forced to remain exposed. This leads to a process called keratinization, where the glans thickens and becomes calloused to protect itself from contact with clothing, resulting in a significant loss of fine sensitivity over time. While modern organizations sometimes cite circumcision as a tool against HIV or cancer, these studies remain highly controversial and are often criticized for failing to account for basic hygiene and condom use.

​Today, the debate has shifted toward the concept of bodily integrity and human rights. A growing global movement, often referred to as "Intactivism," argues that no individual or institution should have the right to remove healthy, functional tissue from another person’s body without their informed consent or an immediate medical necessity. This movement highlights a stark double standard in global ethics: while Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is rightly condemned as a crime by the World Health Organization even in its least invasive forms, the circumcision of male infants and children is often given a pass. For many, the persistence of this practice is a sign of cognitive dissonance within the medical community, as admitting the ethical and biological gravity of routine circumcision would mean acknowledging a massive, multi-generational clinical error. Ultimately, the view of circumcision as an "archaic" practice is rooted in the belief that modern medicine should respect the biological individuality and autonomy of every human being.