Kieran Sorkin, 9, is one of a hundred British children born with microtia, a condition where one or born ears are missing.
"I want people to stop asking me questions", Kieran told BBC News. "I'd like just to look like my friends. I'd also like to be able to wear sunglasses and earphones."
Kieran can hear thanks to a surgically implanted hearing aid, but he was born deaf and has small lobes in place of ears.
His mother Louise said she was concerned he would get bullied because of his condition.
"He's a very sociable boy and has longed for this operation for years," she said. "I don't want children bullying him because he's different. I just want him to be accepted like everyone else."
Fortunately for Kieran, London's Great Ormond Street hospital, has been trialling a technique where doctors can create new ears and graft them onto a patient's head.
Sounds like science fiction, but Kieran is one of a few lucky patients who have already benefitted from the this medical breakthrough.
Surgeons removed cartliage from six of Kieran's ribs before cutting and sewing it into the shape of an ear. The cartliage was then inserted into pockets in the skin and grafted onto the Kieran's head.
Although they don't improve hearing and are purely cosmetic, doctors say the surgical ears can boost the patient's confidence.
"If you can change the confidence of a patient at this young age, you can change their whole trajectory in life," said Dr Neil Bulstrode from the Great Ormond Street Hospital. "You see this when they come back. It's a huge boost for them."
It's still early stages for tissue engineering, but scientists are confident future medical advances could mean less invasive surgeries, especially for children.
The Institute of Child Health (ICH), a research partner with Great Ormond Street Hospital, is currently creating stem cells from patients' fat tissue. The Institute's scientists hope to induce cells to make cartilage or bone.
Lead researcher Dr Patrizia Ferretti told BBC News: "This approach would be far less invasive for a child than the current method of harvesting a child's rib cartilage."
It will be years before such procedures are common practice, so for now, children needing new ears will benefit from the same surgery used at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
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