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Grow Your Own Replacement Bones
Tim writes "New Scientist reports on a German man who had a complete jaw transplant, after having his cancerous jawbone removed nine years ago. The twist? This jawbone was grown on his shoulder, using a titanium mold, bone marrow, and recombinant bone morphogenic protein." There's also a BBC story.
Gentlemen, start your erection jokes!
Go! Go! Go!
Still, the amount of pain associated with getting broken bones means that I doubt there'll be anyone willing to abuse this system!
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
I've always wanted 20 or 30 more vertebrae. And finally, some quasi-femurs and quasi-patellas for my new 2-jointed legs.
Hmmm. Where to attach the second set of arms?
of jawbone shoulder guy ending up in the next Dr. Evil henchman?
A boxer with a glass-chin can be knocked out quite easily, but what about one with a titanium-chin?
--
Tongue in cheek.
As creepy as this may be for those of us fortunate enough to still have all original parts, it's life-changing or even life-saving if you've lost a section of your skeleton (like this dude) for some reason.
Profoundly cool work.
--
I always wanted an iPod how about you?
They didn't explain why they would have to go back later and remove the titanium scaffold. People have titanium hips, vertabrae, skull plates, and teeth--how come those don't have to be removed?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Just to show you how some people can never be pleased, the guy complains to his doctor that because he has no teeth he has to cut it into such small pieces that by the time he gets to the end of the steak, it's cold.
Reminds me of the story that was related to me the other night by someone on IRC. They knew someone whose kids found $200K in a bag and was eventually given control of the money since no one claimed it.
The person spent the money on a house and 2 Jeeps and then later complained that they'd wish they could get a break in life.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Just wait till the piercing/body modification crowd catches wind of this. I imagine tusks, horns, antlers, fangs, claws... The possibilities are endless.
Unknown host pong.
I'd probably complain, something like, "damn, this really bites"...
Sigs cause cancer.
Groaners all, and since everybody wants one, let's get them on the floor:
Now, "I have a bone" to pick with you has a whole new meaning!
Hey, is that a jawbone growing out of your shoulder or are you just happy to see me?
Great - I hear Johnson grew another mouth. Now I'll be getting it in both ears.
I, for one, welcome our shoulder jawbone overlords.
OK, now in seriousness, I think this is a great achievement. Flash forward 10-12 years, and imagine what this could do for other organs. Regrow a finger or a hand for amputees maybe? Suppose we get to work on other organs, such as the heart? Old guy in his 60's can just have new organs regrown to extend his healthy life expectancy to 150 years?
Of course, there's the whole "stem cell and cloning" issues that might come to play when we're talking about organs and not bones, but still, this is a very exciting first step. Congrats to the doctor and patient.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
So, we have people growing their own bones now. How fare are we, then from someone growing, say, another kidney?
If the doctors felt pity on these situations and offer them super hero chins or the equivilant for the different situations. Such as the combat injuries in the crotch and they have to regrow a unit for them.
Instead of subdermal or transdermal implants which are used now, in the near future could you grow your own custom sculpted bone horns on your head?
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
of why stem cell research needs further capitalization. We are scratching the surface of what stem cells can really do for us! Hopefully Bush will read this article and wake up. Science and technology are the only initiatives (right now) that will push mankind forward.
i wonder if he looks like lockjaw from the old he-man cartoon...
Really bizarre feeling while eating leftover ribs.
Sources say Richard Keil is on the waiting list for a new jaw, too.
*oh the horrors*
Why is Bush and his administration against stem cell research again ???
Wouldn't the vast majority of americans want to have this technology available to them ?
Need a liver transplant? No problem, here is one we already made for you. Lung? Spleen? No problem. And now, we apparently have the technology to make the body grow bones of any shape we like and to surgically put those back in the body. That's unbelievably cool.
And, because all of these things are genetically identical to the recipient of the transplant, there is no kind of rejection problem at all.
I don't think it'll be that far down the road before "transplants" are a thing of the past. All organ/tissue replacement will be made for an individual.
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
I thought you said "boner".
How has this affected his ski-boxing?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Really, this is very very interesting. Especially since my grandmother has been diagnosed with cancer in her jaw and will probably have to be removed. She is probably too old in order to have this done, but it gives hope for a lot of people. I can see severed limbs/digits being replaced soon. As long as you could get the muscle tissue and skin to grow back over top... It's not exactly a timely solution, but I'm envisioning the reconstruction scene from the Fifth Element!
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Does this mean I should stop harvesting body parts off of hookers?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I do not understand why we can't grow teeth. Wouldn't that be a great benefit?
Grab some DNA from an existing tooth, off to the farm. Good as new b/c they *are* new.
-b
Is he a greeter at Walmart? Cashier at a Burger King? Clown at kids parties?
I just can't see him saying, "Oooo ahhh iiiieess iiii ahhhh?" (Do you want fries with that?)
Yes. I'm going to hell.
I mean seriously. As cool as this is, who wants to have a jaw on their shoulder? If you had a clone, you could put the jaw on his shoulder.
No fuss, no muss.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
One might even say "jaw-droppingly cool". Because this is just that cool.
John
I'm surprised that I don't get spam about this topic.
From start to end, the bone-replacement procedure took four weeks.
If muscles can be kept from atrophying in that amount of time, you could probably replace long bones like those found in arms and legs.
That'd be cool...
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
So when I grow a pair, where do I grow it?
Please tell me my chin.
Love, Stu
... but man, talk about a chip on your shoulder!
Grow Your Own Replacement Bones
Doesn't Viagra do this already?
http://www.aaplblog.com/ - News about Apple Inc.
Ligand binding to its receptor induces the formation of a complex in which the Type II BMP receptor phosphorylates and activates the Type I BMP receptor.
That sounds so made up.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Dem bones dem bones dem dry bones...
The skull-bone connected to the jaw-bone
The jawbone connected to the shoulderbone...err
Actually this sounds like excellent news, especially for someone like me who is perpetually in danger of getting t-boned on my bike by some irresponsable driver who doesn't look before entering an intersection.
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
If you believe this, the possibilities are already near endless...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The circus!
really is a jaw dropper!
I'd rather be sailing...
next time I loose a bone I will come back to this.
hehe.. seriously though, that is pretty cool, like that harry potter bone grow juice stuff..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
There's a whole lot of ethical issues surrounding such an attempt. You know -- things like "owning" another person, cruel treatment, slavery, exploitation, defining what constitutes a legal person; stuff like that.
That's why there are bans on human cloning, because society hasn't actually resolved what we would feel comfortable saying we're allowed to do to the meat-socks we would grow.
Growing from scratch is both an amazing accomplishment and, to an extent, lessens some of the sticky issues surrounding the whole thing.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sounds like there's hope for Darth Malak after all!
I grow a new bone every morning!
;)
My girlfriend usually appreciates it
so, does this mean i can grow a replacement penis in a mold on my shoulder if for some reason i break it? and if i do it twice at the same time, will i have supercool shoulder spikes?! rock on! commence vigorous masturbation!
This should cut back grind and making of paste of the inocent.
"Jaw transplant allows man to chew after nine years"
"The 56-year-old German man underwent surgery to remove cancerous tumours on his jawbone in 1997, and since then he was able to eat only soup and soft foods."
Since when was it 2006?
I think there are two guys with artificial jaws in Canada, the former prime minister, Brian Mulroney and his son, the Canadian Idol host Ben.
They must have a beta version though, it looks like the growth process got out of hand (probably shoulder), so they show off now with these huge jaws. Or is it just a new trend, like artificial boobs, they gotta be big?
One man's Score: 0, Troll is another man's Score: +5, Funny.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
If you take some old codger with oesteoporosis, grow them some new bones, and then add in a mechanical exoseleton and I think we're all in a world of hurt. Bingo night will look something akin to a Terminator installment.
Doctors grow new jaw in man's back.
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
In a few weeks I am having a spinal fusion surgery to repair my back. My L3 vertebrae is broken completely in two and there is a half inch gap between my spine.
I was given the choice of having bone matter placed in me from a dead person or using my own bone marrow. Well duh! Which choice did I take?
They are going to put two titanium tubes drilled with many small holes in between the two vertebrae then fill them with a mixture of my bone marrow and this BMP material or something very much like it. The mixture will spawn new bone growth and cause the two vertebrae to grow (or fuse) into one large vertebrae. Titanium rods and screws will hold it all together while it grows, which could take anywhere from one year to two years.
This is from an injury that occurred about 37 years ago and degenerated over time from a fracture to the point of total failure of the bone. I'm told that it's a GOOD thing that it just now is coming to light because of these new procedures, otherwise had they found it when I was a child, spinal surgical procedures in those days were barbaric and had a low success rate. They say this new method has better than a 95% success rate, with the 5 percent failure due to people not doing as told afterwards.
It looks like the transplant contains "liquid bone marrow containing stem cells" but the researcher in the UK also said she thought that the stem cells weren't necessary to spur bone growth since it would grow anyway. An interesting and good use of stem cells in the real world though.
I agree completely that stem cell research must not be restricted, the potential benefits are simply ming-boggling. But the Associated Press article I read earlier today which covers this same story, however, states that "it's not clear any major scientific ground has been broken, and tests may not be able to show whether the new bone came from stem cells, rather than from the growth factor alone." So in this case stem cells might not have anything to do with the results. That article is pretty detailed as well.
If you want to see more pictures, you can find them here.
These bonehead scientists just keep coming and coming with their new deviations...
Regarding the nose,
Somebody please forward this article to Michael Jackson.
"Such a lovely child...so full of bones"
12:50 - press return.
I was born with conjenital dislocation of the hips, which successively degraded over the years so that I had to have both hips replaced with artificial ones in 1995 at the age of 31. Although these artificial hips have been very good, I have to be careful about my weight and that I don't do jarring kinds of sports or lift heavy weights. I would have given a lot for this kind of implant to replace my degraded hips.
Perhaps in the future...
Yes, but be aware of the distinction between adult stem cells and fetal stem cells. President Bush has banned fetal stem cell research in the U.S. while allocating several million to adult stem cell research. Fetal stem cells show no medical potential, while adult stem cells show tremendous potential for medical applications such as the one described in the article. However, the anti-Bush pro-abortion media absolutely refuses to make this distinction, though it has often been presented to them. This allows them to push their agenda of making Bush look like an anti-science religious nut.
Yes, you will grow them on your chin. You can now go around singing, My nuts, my chin!
Ironically, your chin is connected to your jaw.
Here's a guy who is gradually turning himself into a tiger. For real ...
According to this BBC article I spotted a few months ago, some scientists are already working on growing new teeth using stem cell technology. Theoretically you could just get an injection and 6-8 weeks later, you hve a new tooth. Gotta say that this will be incredibly cool if they pull it off...
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So they did implant the titanium mesh.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
This sort of news always reminds me of the book Neuromancer. Makes me think of all the crazy modifications people get done to themselves in that book... it seems like we're always getting one step closer to the book's fictional ideas becoming reality (which in my opinion is both good and bad).
:D
I'm still anxiously awaiting a true 'matrix' as depicted in the book!
A quote in that story, from Paul Brown, head of the Center for Tissue Regeneration Science at University College in London:
This reminds me of the Ted Maul bit in the Science episode of Brass Eye where a transplant clinic preys on deadbeats to incubate organs which are then harvested for their rich clients. 7 feet of new tongue for Donald Trump, white-ladies wrists for Saddam Hussein, etc... One man grows 150 lips on his chest for 6 pence a lip while the reporter makes an undercover call to the clinic under the pretense of having had a load of wog and spazing it all on a horse and is offered 500 quid to grow a "stomach full of shoulders".
No, the other one
Titanium plate armour, hmm.....
Just imagine when the Do-It-Yourself kits become available. Think of all the botched first time projects.
"What's that thing on the end of your dick?"
"That was supposed to be a third eye."
BTW, I used to think the ultimate in body mutilation was going to be plexiglass skull windows.
Yes, you're all right. My bad, it's early on a friday here and I hit submit too quick. Bush is against Embryonic stem cell reseaerch . . . but whenever I hear him speak on such a matter he doesn't adequately distinguish stem cell reseearch from embryonic stem cell research. I was mislead into believing he was against all stem cell research and the creation of new cell lines from stem cells.derived from aborted fetuses. oops, sorry about that.
I have always wanted to grow a third arm, out my back that can reach over my head and shade my eyes so I can save money on sunglasses. I love progress!!!
finnally! I can grow my replacement penis. but where do i grow it in the meantime. he used his shoulder, don't think that would be appropriate at my workplace.
-hak
If she floats, she's a witch.
"It could be you if you play your cards right honey!"
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Gives a new meaning to the term 'dick head'.
IANALOOA
they don't like stem cells etc, I wonder if the Bush gang will find something bad about growing bones?
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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
From the New Scientist article:
... in 1997, and since then he was able to eat only soup and soft foods.
/. submitter and the BBC didn't RTFA or they would have spotted the mistake. It may be a small mistake, but how many other mistakes were made in the original article? And what does this say about the reliability of the reporters who blindly parrot blatantly inaccurate "facts"?
A man has been able to savour his first proper meal in nine years after surgeons successfully created and transplanted a jawbone for him.
The 56-year-old German man underwent surgery
Doesn't that make it 7 years? What year is it now? It's 2004, correct? Have I lost 2 years?
Seriously though, I guess the
Is a fair discussion really too much to ask for? I'm stunned that parent is being modded down as a troll.
The problem with God is that he thinks he's Richard Wagner
Yeah, I was thinking I could get a tiny little extra lower AND upper mandible grown, then I could have that freaky double mouth action thing from Alien going on...
(yeah we can laugh now, when our kids come home with a double ring of Doberman teeth circling their skulls 'cause it's the krezappy style of the day we'll be singing a different tune.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I'm surprised it hasn't been said - there may be hope for our blue buddy Raziel yet...
She says she's missing her bottle of Skelegrow.
As the parent is insinuating:
penultimate
adj.
1. Next to last.
Once again, math saves the people who believe that everyone in the world can get a Flat Screen. 1x8=8, 8x8=64, 64x8=512, 512x8=4,096, 4096x8=32,768, 32768x8=262,144, 262144x8=2,097,152, 2097152x8=16,777,216, 16777216x8=134,217,728, 134217728x8=1,073,741,824, and the next step is over 8 billion. see the resemblance to a pyramid?? Who's going to tell the last 2 groups of people that they cannot, under any circumstances, get 8 people to sign up? Sounds like a jackass scheme to me.
We may now have the advent of "real" breast enhancement, so remember that in a few years from now, no, those are NOT shoulder pads.
... he could go out as Zaphod Beeblebrox!
Actually, while twins are genetic duplicates they enjoy a completely different legal status than a man-made clone. (Yes, it's a question of semantics, but it's a question nonetheless.)
Trust me. Since we've never made an human clones, and all of the legal issues which surround what it would mean to do so have NOT been settled in any way.
You're just saying that as if we've already decided it, and your first impulse that "clones are just like natural people" is just what you think. I agree with you to an extent, but asserting you've solved the problem doesn't actually mean anything in the broader scope of issues.
If you look here and read a little, you'll find that we have done nothing to have already decided this. Cloning is illegal specifically because we haven't settled the issues.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...John Wayne Bobbit has succesfully re-grown his own boner.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
A: Nah, I'm growing a spare cocyx.
desperate slashedoter? give yourself a bone!
"Oh, dear. She's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot. Well, that's love for you." - Professor Farnsworth
Actually, since this all happened in Germany, and not in the US, I think it is a pretty good case against Bush's stem cell "policy" (more like religious idiocy, imho).
My wife finished her undergrad genetics degree (at a Canadian university) a couple of years ago, and even then she noticed an increase in the number of people from the US coming up for grad studies, since the type of work they needed to do with stem cells just wasn't possible in the US.
Stem cell research is going to happen, with or without Bush. The only variable is the country in which it is going to happen, and right now it ain't the US.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
I wonder why the doctors want to remove the titanium later? I mean, if it's already part of the bone structure, why go through all the problem of removing it? Unless it's horribly disfiguring or something. Otherwise, Titanium is pretty inert and just would make him have a hard-to-break jaw. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding the article?
eom
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
A friend of mine who broke a toe went to the ER to have it fixed. As she was thinking to herself that the wait was taking forever, a woman was rushed in, and then my friend heard the people who accompanied her talk about how that woman no longer had a face after getting kicked by a horse, and were wondering what would or could be done.
Suddenly she didnt feel so bad about her broken toe.
When she told me, I made a mental note to stay away from large animals.
can growing your heart on your sleeve be far behind?
(sorry - couldn't resist)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Does he get to keep the titanium mold and get some titanium teeth? The new James Bond is gonna need a "special friend".
He works for SCO.
and anyone else similarly situated must think this is a god send!
I can just imagine someone having to carry around a HUGE JAW in a wheel barrel or something...
Two years ago was on a project using CT images to virtually reconstruct jaw and skull
parts from the other side of the head then prototype the parts using a
plastic prototype printer. When the surgeons had a prototype jaw they could construct
the metal supports before surgery drastically cutting down on OR time. The metal supports
were then molded into silica glass which the bone then grew around.
Codeman
projects @ http://spectechnologies.net
there's a pic of this fellow with the jawbone growing in his back over on CNN...
wierd, but not too gross I guess
When Roy Horn was mauled by the lion, they removed a big piece of his skull to prevent brain swelling. Then they kept the skull fragment in his abdomen a couple weeks until the brain was OK. Sounds a bit creepy to move bone around like that, but its the most reliable way to keep the bone alive.
Sounds much like them penis enlargement gremlins are at it again.
I wrote the C code inside a robotic limb lengthening machine and was able to attend many surgeries and see patient progress over time.
The basic principle is simple... break a leg and tug on it by 1 millimeter per day, and the body will fill in the gap with new bone.
The technique is called the Ilizarov technique after the Russian who discovered it. You can see in those pictures that a mechanical frame takes the place of your broken bone during the "stretching" phase. The leg is broken, but the frame keeps you able to walk nearly normal.
The most amazing operation I saw was a guy who blew away his entire tibia/fibula with a shotgun, but didn't overly destroy the blood vessels and nerves and muscle of the lower leg. They bolted one of these frames on, compressed his ankle and foot up just 4" from his knee, waited a few days for the bone to knit, and then grew him a new tibia over the course of 6 months.
You can make ANYONE taller using this technique, at about 1 inch per month.
The Russians used wrenches to turn their bolts 4 times a day, elongating the metal frame by 1/4 mm four times per day, for the 1mm total. Our device (the autogenesis device) used Intel microcontrollers and stepper motors geared down enormously, so that we elongated the frame over 1000 times per day by less than a micron each move. The result was more natural looking nerves, blood vessels, (which are also grown by this technique), the body likes the gradual movements better.
You can do all kinds of crazy stuff with this technique. One of the first patients was an Atlanta Falcons player who had one leg lengthened by a small amount and also had the foot rotated by a few degrees (again, a very small amount each day) to correct an improperly healed injury.
I want a third arm for skiboxing!
--
make install -not war
Am I the only one fearing that poor people will be hired to grow richer peoples' organs on themselves. I can imagine farms of humans doing nothing but lying down with organs growing all over their bodies.
really lame lameness filter
The second paragraph "The file conversion..." should have come last because it was about my experience with it.
If you had skull windows, you'd have to find some way to get a cold cathode in there...either that, or adapted police officers wouldn't need the flashing light on their helmet any more.
now where are some mobsters? =P
p.s. someone help me, please! I've chipped in to the community. You should too.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
allowing surplus embryos that were going to be destroyed anyways to be used for scientific research that will help people is the height of degradation.
that laura b*sh would keep her fat mouth
shut and let scientists do stem cell research.
anata sekai o kakumei surush ga nai deshou? Anata no susumu michi wa yoi shite arimasu.
It was wild to watch the operations, first they would put the frame rings on the leg (with spokes through the entire legs!) And then cut a very small opening, and take a chisel to the bone and cleave it into two! They liked the chisel because it made a rough break, ripe with lots of bone knitting area. The orthopedic surgeons are definitely the mechanics of the medical profession.
Birds ate my jaw!
Ignorance is bliss and I'm suicidal.
... but MY clone would love me and want to make me happy.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
After thinking about it for a second, I'm sure this will be tried very soon somewhere.
I'd like to place my order for one set of wings. On my back.
Carticel does grow cartilage, but a different type than what is normally found on joint surfaces. Many orthopods are losing interest in it, because it doesn't live up to the expectations, and it's not worth it.
I am a bone tumor surgeon by profession. We can replace alomost anything in your body, but your original equipment is still the best by far. Just because you can make some bone and implant it, doesn't mean it'll worke better than a similar shaped piece of metal with some porous ingrowth coating..
..........FULL STOP.
Bush is preventing the destruction of dead embryos.
> Grow Your Own Replacement Bones
Now if I can just Grow My Own Replacement Boner.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
maybe when my severance and plasma run out I can start growing jaws for people. Even I should be able to afford a diet high in jello.
Now I have absolutely no fear of cancer and can engage in all of my foolish bad habits. Thanks to science.
... god knows more people need them.