Posted on 03/31/2010 2:02:48 PM PDT by saganite
A Columbia scientist has become the first to grow a complex, full-size bone from human adult stem cells.
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, reports that her team grew a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) from stem cells derived from bone marrow. Her work is reported in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month.
"The TMJ has been widely studied as a tissue-engineering model because it cannot be generated easily, if at all, by current methods," says Vunjak-Novakovic, whose co-authors include Warren L. Grayson, then a post-doctoral student in her lab and now an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. Around 25 percent of the population suffers from TMJ disorders -- including those who suffer from cancer, birth defects, trauma and arthritis -- which can cause joint deterioration. Because the TMJ is such a complex structure, it is not easily grafted from other bones in a patient's body. "The availability of personalized bone grafts engineered from the patient's own stem cells would revolutionize the way we currently treat these defects," she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Wonder what they could get from the jaw bone of an ass?
bttt...interesting...
Democrats.
Too bad Obamacare will stop this research in its tracks.
I can think of only two Republican candidates who are fit for the GOP presidential nomination. Neither have testicles, and they don't need them.
This is early bio exploration, there is far more to learn. In the future we may learn to regrow our extremities. Far fetch? I see crustaceans growing lost arms, if we find the key that can unlock the mystery we’ll do it on humans eventually. Did man 2000-3000 years ago think that we could ever replace hearts, create life in a test tube? Fantastic things await us in the future, keep exploring.
That question was already answered on Jan 20, 2009.
Wonder if Obamacare will approve boob transplants for 80 year old women. I wonder if anyone would really want to see the results............
Every time I read an article like this I am amazed at how God engineered the human body.
I wonder if I can put in an order for a right third metatarsal. I’ve needed a new one for 30 years.
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