The first penis transplant is all set to take place in the United States. The surgeons from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said the first recipient of the penis transplant will be a young soldier.

Dr. Damon Cooney, assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery and co-clinical director of the penile transplant program at Johns Hopkins, said they want to expand the field into areas that are not easy to reconstruct using conventional methods.

“The more and more interactions we've had with the military, the more we came to find out that although people aren't talking about it much, genital injuries are a much bigger problem for a lot of people”, said Dr Cooney.

Surgeons associated with the transplant program said the organ for the transplant will be of a deceased donor. Doctors hope the new organ will start functioning normally within few months after the surgery. Plans for performing such a surgery for the first were reported in The New York Times.

So far, only two penis transplants have been performed. The one performed in China in 2006 was a failure and the transplant performed last year in South Africa was successful.

In June 2015, the recipient of the South Africa’s successful transplant reported that his girlfriend was pregnant. According to the Department of Defense Trauma Registry, an estimated 1,367 men in military service suffered wounds to the genitals in Iraq or Afghanistan from 2001 to 2013.

The John Hopkins has given doctors permission to perform about 60 transplants, for which doctors have even started screening of patients.