A New Way to Grow Bones

Roland Piquepaille writes "As it is often the case, a recent discovery just came out from a simple idea. By studying diseases in which the human body generates too much bone, UCLA researchers have discovered a natural molecule that can be used to generate new bone growth in patients who lack it. This new molecule has aptly been named UCB, or University of California Bone. This new protein for growing bones is more precise and has fewer side effects than the ones currently used by orthopedic surgeons to aid in bone repair. But if you suffer from a bone deficit today, you'll have to wait almost ten years before an FDA approval and a commercial introduction of products based on this discovery. Read more for other details and references, plus a picture of a bone defect corrected by the UCB."

Comments

10 year wait

[1nv4d3r]

So, what are some things that we discovered 10 years ago, that should be coming to market soon?

Re:10 year wait

[jd]

Virtual Reality systems should be just about entering the domestic market. We aught to be seeing the first research experiments into the usefulness of Bose-Einstein Condensates. GUI development should be moving from being a pleasent gimic to being something of value within itself.

The development lifecycle is about 10 years for each stage. There seems to be an initial conceptual stage, starting with the origin of the idea through to a product that can sustain itself. Another 10 years covers the scientific R&D, turning the product into something that is usable. A third 10-year step then turns something usable into something cost-effective to use. There's a fourth 10-year step, of "garage development", where the product has insufficient commercial value to be useful to corporations, but is definitely of interest to real inventers. This finishes when the product enters homes as an executive toy or gimic. A fourth 10-year step covers development of a product that is actually useful in and of itself.

The first computers appeared around 1945-1948. The scientific computers actually useful in science started appearing in the mid 1950s, and the 1960s is when you saw business machines really make headway. Home-brew computers appeared in the mid 1970s, usable home computers could be found in the 1980s and home computing became pretty standard by the mid 1990s.

VR started in the 1960s. Scientific prototypes appeared in the 1970s and early corporate uses seem to originate around the 1980s. You could buy digitizing gloves and VR helmets for home-brew VR in the mid 1990s. Early home-use VR should therefore appear this year or next, and VR should be pretty much the norm by 2015.

Quantum computers were theorized about 10 years ago, and we're now starting to see early prototypes of single transistors. Quantum computing is unlikely to be in a particularly useful state for another 30 years, based on this timetable.

Timesharing operating systems started in the early 1960s. The timetable predicts that homebrew OS' of this kind should have appeared early 1990s. Enter Linux and 386BSD. The timetable also predicts that they should have entered the home in a usable state in early 2000s - about the time Linux started really showing up in the desktop market, pre-loaded and ready to run.

The pattern is not "absolute", but it does give a rough guide as to when things are likely to move from one phase of development to another.

To grow a bone...

[bcrowell]

...I just need Natalie Portman and hot grits!

New bone growth is great, but...

[RootsLINUX]

Do they have any methods to stop the bone growth? If they don't, then isn't this just trading one bone disease for another? I fail to see how that would help the problem....

On a personal note, I would go with more bone.

Re:UCLA vs. UCB ?

[daeley]

I think someone from U.C. Berkeley pulled a fast one on the University of California Los Angeles.

Naw, the other guys are just working on the more complicated University of California Liver Augmentation.

Re:Innuendo

[NanoGator]

"I have to wait 10 years for University of California Bone? And I thought college kids were easy..."

Hehe.

You think that's bad? 3D artists have turned 'bone' into a verb. If you add a bone to an object (i.e. if you're building a posable human), they call it 'boning'. Somewhere there's a tutorial floating around called 'boning a horse'.

That's not the problem..

[spineboy]

IAAOS (I am an Orthopaedic Surgeon) and usually having overgrowth of bone(Heterotopic ossification) is not a problem. A quick visit to the radiation oncologist for some very low dose radiation usually will prevent any expected overgrowth (as long as you're not a child). Tobacco smoking also usually does a fair job with this too.

We have become very good at fixing broken bones, but when there is major bone loss we have no great solutions. Infections and trauma that result in substantial bone loss either require a tumor type prosthesis (replacement) or an amputation. Neither are great choices.

The current methods for stimulating bone growth (e.g. you want to make sure that your spinal fusion for arthritis will work, or that your bad tibia(shin bone) fracture will heal) usually involve either the use of BMPs (bone morphogenic proteins) at non physiologic concentrations (>1,000x found in the body) or by the use of electric/or ultrasonic stimulators. BMPs are very expensive $ - several thousand dollars for a few table spoons worth of material. The electric/ultrasonic stimulators by in large have not been found to be very useful.

Bone loss is still a significant problem in orthopaedics and oral surgery, and the discovery of anything that provides a significant means to renew bone stock will be a major advance for patients. Having said this - I'll wait and see if the UCBs make it to the marketplace. That should be about 10 years from now.

Skel-e-grow

[SimonInOz]

This isn't new. Harry Potter had it ages ago. The matron used it to regrow the bones in his arm.

New, indeed!