ANN ARBOR, Mich. - While lawyers battle over the dangers of silicone breast implants, scientists are exploring a startling procedure that uses a woman's own cells to create tissue inside the breasts - in effect, a "grow-your-own" alternative.

"We've been trying to outsmart the body's immune system. These fellows have come up with a concept that works with it," said James Martin, research director at Carolinas Medical Center. The experiments were begun last fall at the Charlotte, N.C.-based hospital and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

If early work on laboratory animals succeeds, the researchers, within three to five years, will remove a tissue sample from somewhere in a woman's body, use it to grow additional cells in a lab, then implant the cells in the woman's breast. There they should multiply and mature into real breast tissue.