Dr Shai Meretzki with human bones grown from stem cells
Scientists have grown human bone from stem cells in a laboratory…The development opens the way for patients to have broken bones repaired or even replaced with entire new ones grown outside the body from a patient’s own cells.
The researchers started with stem cells taken from fat tissue. It took around a month to grow them into sections of fully-formed living human bone up to a couple of inches long.
The first trial in patients is on course to be conducted later this year, by an Israeli biotechnology company that has been working with academics on the technology.
Professor Avinoam Kadouri, head of the scientific advisory board for Bonus BioGroup, said: “There is a need for artificial bones for injuries and in operations…We use three dimensional structures to fabricate the bone in the right shape and geometry. We can grow these bones outside the body and then transplant it to the patient at the right time…By scanning the damaged bone area, the implant should fit perfectly and merge with the surrounding tissue. There are no problems with rejection as the cells come from the patient’s own body…”
Already animals have successfully received bone transplants. The scientists were able to insert almost an inch of laboratory-grown human bone into the middle section of a rat’s leg bone, where it successfully merged with the remaining animal bone.
The technique could ultimately allow doctors to replace bones that have been smashed in accidents, fill in defects where bone is missing such as cleft palate, or carry out reconstructive plastic surgery…
A number of research teams around the world are developing techniques for regrowing bone using stem cells, but most have used a different kind of stem cell and injected them into the patient rather than growing them into bones outside the body for transplant.
Bravo.
Of course, religious nutballs trapped inside their rejection of science will continue their dead-end debate about which kind of stem cells are used for whatever purpose.
I have to wonder how long their brains will remain trapped inside a matrix of 14th Century ignorance, whether their children will grow up with sufficient access to the world of information and knowledge – and escape from diminished choices.
Eideard 