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.

Comments

Re:Great.

[garcia]

Umm, this really isn't for people with your typical broken bone. This is for people that need a bone replacement.

It only took seven weeks to grow the replacement jaw-piece and then only four more weeks until it was successfully grown into place.

For some reason I was under the impression that they had grown him an entire new jaw but that was obviously not the case as they only grew him a piece of his jawbone back. He still has no teeth and the doctors claim he can get a set next year.

Wow.

Re:Hurray for Stem Cells Research

[plover]

As much as I don't like Bush and the Republican party, and think their embryonic stem cell restrictions are the penultimate in luddite stupidity, you should reread the article. This jawbone was grown from his own bone marrow stem cells, and did not require embryonic stem cells. No Bushwhacking would be involved.

Besides, this was done in Germany. Even if the Theocratic States of America succeed in shutting down all medical progress, they're happy to outsource this sort of thing. Need a new kidney? Fly to Germany, they'll be happy to grow you a new one.