|
Bone grafts are the current gold standard of treatment for damage to
bone caused by an accident, genetic mutation, or surgery. But they don't get a
gold medal. In the UK more than 250,000 bone grafts are performed each year.
The patients of these procedures must undergo two traumatic operations in order
to collect bone from another area of the body to use for the graft. The doctor
may also choose to use donor bone which could be rejected by the patient's
body. Using the patient's own cells
would reduce the chance for this rejection and growing the bone outside the
body removes the need for additional surgeries. STEM cells are known to do some
pretty amazing things and recently, scientists are using STEM cells from fat
tissue to grow human bone in a laboratory.
Image Credit: ©The Foot & Ankle Journal
"There is a need for artificial bones for injuries and in operations"
says Professor Avinoam Kadouri, head of the scientific advisory board for Bonus BioGroup. Bonus BioGroup is an
Israeli biotechnology company. They have been collaborating with academics on
this technology.
Growing Bone
The growth process took close to a month but the development is a
stepping stone to
repair or replace broken bones. It also allows for the possibility that
bones can be replaced with entirely new ones grown outside the body with the
patient's own cells. After a month, fully-formed living bone grew up to a
couple of inches long.
The damaged bone is scanned to obtain the shape and geometry of the
area to ensure a perfect fit and merger with the surrounding tissue. A three
dimensional scaffold is then made of a gel-like material used to support the
bone as it grows. The bone is grown in a "bioreactor", a machine which provides
conditions needed for the cells to develop into bone.
Image Credit: Bonus BioGroup
What's Next?
While human trials are due to start within a year, there have already
been successful animal trials. Scientists were able to insert almost an inch of
the laboratory-grown human bone in the middle section of a rat's leg bone.
There is also research being done to grow
the soft cartilage at the end of bones, which is needed if entire bones are
to be produced in a laboratory. The research could further be expanded to
create bigger bones such as those needed to replace damaged joints. The
technology is the same, but the equipment would need to be scaled to
accommodate the larger bones.
Resources
Human
bones grown from fat in laboratory
| 
