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Finnish Patient Gets New Jaw from His Own Stem Cells
An anonymous reader writes with news out of Finland, where a patient's upper jaw was replaced with bone cultivated from stem cells and grown inside the patient himself. We discussed other advances in stem cell research a few months ago. Quoting:
"In this case they identified and pulled out cells called mesenchymal stem cells -- immature cells than can give rise to bone, muscle or blood vessels. When they had enough cells to work with, they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months. The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said."
A jaw growing in his abdomen? I've seen that film before...
Why not link to the original article, and not some ad infested blog site. ?Cheers.
I have no doubt that Bill Gates has had himself cloned, or at least all his organs and tissues, for when his own parts wear out. Stashed around the world, as insurance against laws banning cloning.
And if it's not viable yet, they'll just keep cloning him until they get it right.
I know that if I had $100B, that's how I'd spend it.
--
make install -not war
You are all fucking bastards
Does this mean I can have a second wee-wee?
How much did it cost him/her? $500k? $1M?
to do this.
I hope they can expand this technology to replace embryonic stem cell harvesting in the future.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I wonder how much guvment funding this had. Is anyone in the US pursuing this line of work? Why not? All in all it seems that this kind of approach (using various adult steem cells) has far out stripped fetal stem cells in terms of therapeutic value.
I have a mandibular excess and a maxillary deficiency (meaning my jawbone is too big and my upper face area is too small), which leads me to grind my teeth, get some major TMJ pain, and end up with ruined and crooked teeth. I've looked at all the surgeries (major, like taking your jaw OUT of your mouth entirely), and they didn't seem worth the risk. The long term problem is I'll lose all my teeth. I was the freak with the toothbrush in school, who flossed and brushed and rinsed 3 times a day. Today I'm the root canal and filling king, because of the jaw issue.
When stem cells are available to regrow teeth, it will take off. The problem is that I expect the ADA (that's the lobbying group to keep dentists expensive and rare, like the AMA is a lobbying group to reduce the supply of doctors and rape the patients' wallets) will fight it tooth and nail. They'll do it under a mask of "religion" by a group controlled by them, but it will happen.
Here, again, we see a market phenomenon that will either be over-regulated by the government so that it takes too long and is too expensive to bring to market, or we'll see a complete destruction of a huge opportunity to fix problems. I am willing to take a risk to deal with the teeth issue today, and I'm probably going to have to do it in India or China because I know that we won't get any favor here if it competes with the strong lobbying cartels, like the crooked dentists (or the doctors, or the CPAs, or any number of groups who have "associations" to harm consumers with bad legislation).
Do you really think the ADA will be against a procedure that requires much oral surgery, and associated fees? They don't make money off people without teeth, so it is their best interest to encourage you to keep them.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Hopefully this research goes to something useful, like helping me grow multiple prehensile penises that shoot pheromones and aphrodisiacs.
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they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months.
...if the guy pulled his head out of his ass.
...I expect the ADA ...will fight it tooth and nail.
:)
No pun intended, I'm sure.
There is a huge market for artificial teeth. Two of the people I work with have lost teeth recently and have gone in for artificials, its a 6 month long process that costs around 10 grand. Its in a dentists interest to keep the patient with poor teeth.
No smoking sigs indoors.
There is no such thing as an "upper jaw." We have various bones forming the base of the skull and associated teeth structures (aka maxilla) and a lower jaw (aka mandible).
Dentists have been using stem cells for years. In certain situations when there are not enough bone to place dental implants, dentists would place bonegrafts mixed in with blood drawn from the hip marrow. You get around 5-10 stem cells for every million blood cells but that's all it takes to convert the bonegraft into the patient's own bone (the stem cells become osteoblasts). The only difference in this study versus what we have been doing is that they place the bonegraft with stem cells into the stomach for osteoconduction versus us placing the material into place right off the bat. Typical wait times for us is only 6 months before the bone is deemed solid enough for implant placement.
The ADA is only one thing: a lobbying group. For years they've fought the amalgam reduction plans, saying mercury in teeth is safe. I've watched the pro-health group show case after case.
The ADA backs flouride in toothpastes -- the very chemical that weakens teeth. They back flouride in water, too.
Yes, they'll fight stem cells. We've seen successful trials in the UK to regrow teeth, why not here in the US?
The pope just shit a brick
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
What bonehead tagged this "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"? That tag is for describing situations where some kind of decision could easily have unforeseen consequences affecting numerous people. What could possibly go wrong here is that this guy could, at worst, die. This one guy.
Stop overusing that tag! </rant>
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Daddy's little girl can then go into the doctor's office and say: "I want to look like Britney Spears/Paris Hilton/whatever the slutty starlet flavor of the month is!" A vault of casts from different star's bodies is opened, and they stuff the parts into our victi.. err patient's already over sized abdomen. Then they tear off her body parts one by one and replace them with the "improved" versions. Everyone will end up looking like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Wait, is that why... oh crap! Ridiculously impossible ideas aside, this is great news, seriously. No no don't worry, I wouldn't want to look like Tom Cruise either.
Well, as an American citizen who is watching his country's slow fall from being the leader in technology and scientific research to a relative backwater, I'd say it's a good thing that other nations are investing more and more in science, so that when the time comes I'll be able to fly somewhere to get state-of-the-art treatment if I should ever need it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Where on earth do you have it from that fluoride weakens teeth? I've never heard anything like that. What I learned from chemistry is that fluoride strengthens the enamel.
Besides, everyone knows the fluoridation of water is a commie plot to impurify our precious bodily fluids.
In a fair world, refrigerators would make electricity.
[citation needed]
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Of the proto-jaw as it's taken out of the abdomen?
How long till this, in some form, is used to increase breast size? It seems growing a jaw would be more difficult than growing new/more breast tissue, and they would be "real". Just inject some "breast stem cells" directly into the breast and watch em grow :). I for one welcome our new larger breast female overlords.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Unfortunately I am on my cell phone PDA (where I browse and post to slashdot from regularly) so I can't do an easy Google search. Please double check my spelling here, but look up the report by Dr. Hardy Limeback regarding skeletal fluorosis. Limeback was a shill for the Canadian Dental Association (Canada's lobbying group) regarding fluoridation support, but has since changed his mind. I believe his changeover happened in the late 90s, but I stay on top of what he has been writing. Since he has "come out of the fluoro-closet," other researchers and scientists are starting to see the problems with fluoride.
Fluoride MAY make enamel in teeth stronger, but it is now seen to make bone structures (hips and limbs, as well as jaws and teeth) much weaker over time. Also, it seems that the toxic level of fluoride may now be actually much lower than what the ADA and AMA have specified since the 50s when the research was "confirmed."
One thing I don't necessarily agree with is the conspiracy advocates against fluoride. Here is their story, which I again don't really think is a correct theory: during WWII, fluoride was an excess waste chemical that was found to protect bones from nuclear pollutants. The idea was the add fluoride to water to protect people from a nuclear war, but also to pad the pockets of the chemical companies. Since then, the profits from adding this waste material to water have been high, so they've continued the conspiracy. Again, I don't think it holds water, but I have not discounted it completely.
As more and more medical experts refine their research into the long term effects of fluoride, it becomes obvious that it is a poison, detrimental to human growth and strength, and a major profit point for large State-enabled industry. I stopped drinking flouridated water 8 years ago (and stopped using fluoride-based toothpaste), and my lifetime problem with my teeth has turned around significantly. In the first 24 years of my life, I had over 30 cavities, including multiple in the same teeth. In the past 8 years, I've had 2. In the past 5 years, I've had zero, and there is are signs that some of my teeth may actually have partially healed themselves (somehow!).
My dentist has, for the past 5 years, been taking some patients off of fluoride consumption and he thinks it has helped more than 80% of those with severe dental problems.
Sidenote: I also stopped consuming sugar and many products which sugarize in the mouth (many wheat products, some corn products, etc). This may have something to do with having a healthier mouth!
And? Instead of artificials you're selling them real teeth, where's the big difference?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The debate is centered on ethics. Most of the facts aren't in dispute, they just get ignored.
The facts simply aren't reasonably in dispute. We all know that a zygote is an immature homo sapien. We know that it doesn't have brain function until considerably later and isn't communicative until well after it's born. So the debate is whether or not that's the same sort of "human" that belongs in the term "human rights." That is, whether it is our intelligence or our humanity that makes us somehow worthy of the rights we all recognize.
This is the CORE of the debate, not something that can be dispensed with as a side issue. It doesn't matter if that's why someone is destroying embryos, the people who believe it's human life oppose it because they believe it's human life. There simply isn't a way around that! You're asking them to discuss why they oppose it while leaving out the main reason! Sure, there might be some people who oppose it due to other reasons (squeamishness, fear of science, or whatever), but there aren't too many of those. Then you go on to talk about the "waste" embryos as if those who oppose destroying them aren't opposed to the processes which leave them as waste! Did you not read the story yesterday with the Pope of all people condemning those very things?
Worse, you go on to illegal immigration and you again miss the entire point of the opposition's argument! They're against the laws as written, so of course they don't want to enforce them any more than your average Slashdotter thinks the NFL ought to be able to enforce the ban on TV screens over 56 inches which is also written into law. But you've probably never been through immigration, so you don't have much of an idea how byzantine it is. Nor would you know that the agency has been almost completely defunded so that they can't process your case in a reasonable amount of time. And God help you if they screw up at any point. Hell, they've deported American citizens caught in raids, taking months to review the case even when presented with a valid US birth certificate!
So when you say that the opposition's case "isn't based on facts" I'm hearing that you don't really understand the opposition's case. Because that's what you're showing me. Believe it or not, I'm NOT ignorant of what a zygote or blastocyst is. I know the difference between pluripotent and multipotent stem cells, as well as the rationale behind the use of each. I even know a little about immigration law, despite being a US citizen who hasn't had to suffer going through it.
You? You can't even state the opponent's case in a reasonable manner. Believe it or not, I can engage in calm and rational debate. I won't throw out my case as a prerequisite, though, nor will I agree to the stipulation that the facts "aren't" on my side simply because you disagree with my interpretation of them. But I won't yell and scream at you when I ask you to pin down exactly what makes a human "human."
I don't have to. All I have to do is extend your "logic" to its breaking points. Given your display of the ignorance of our arguments, you don't seem to understand that your blind spot is a mile wide.
We'll kick your asses solid. But don't worry, if your jaw disappears in the tussle, we'll grow you a new one on the taxpayer's dime.
How long till this, in some form, is used to increase breast size? It seems growing a jaw would be more difficult than growing new/more breast tissue, and they would be "real".
Women with real breasts larger than a D-cup frequently seek breast reduction surgery, natural breast tissue isn't strong enough to support that much weight in an aesthetically appealing way. When science comes up with a way to make a 40 year old's natural breasts perky again, then plastic surgeons will have to rethink their business model.
We are all just people.
I hate it when religion is used as a front for political/financial agenda...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Careful with including your childhood into that number, the milk teeth are much weaker than regular teeth.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Is that a jawbone in your abdomen, or are you just happy to see me?
A woman gets badly burned, and they graft skin from her husband's ass to rebuild her face. After the series of operations, she looks great.
She says, "Honey, how can I ever repay you?"
He says, "I get paid back every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek."
What?
from the shouldnt-they-have-tried-it-on-andrew-morton-first department
He works together with some ostheopath.. eh.. ist, well, a bone surgeon anyway, who makes these 'scaffolds' out of (dead) coral, cause it has a structure that's perfect for the injection of cells. He lives on Aruba, you see. So that's why. Don't know any more about it though - *mumble*.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Sidenote: I also stopped consuming sugar and many products which sugarize in the mouth (many wheat products, some corn products, etc). This may have something to do with having a healthier mouth!
Given that sugar can be directly associated with just about every common disease from which man suffers, lowering your sugar intact will absolutely result in a healthier body and mouth. Most nutritional research indicates low caloric diets result in both healthy bodies and younger looking skin and hair, and a longer, healthy lifespan to boot. Low caloric diets are almost impossible with highly processed, sugary foods.
In nations where high levels or processed sugars have been introduced to the indigenous populations, disease rates rapidly rise and lifespans rapidly shrink; with poor oral health following.
I have absolutely no idea if fluoride harms the body. But without a doubt, reducing ones sugar intact, doubly so for processed sugars, will improve ones overall health.
Ironically, a popular sugar substitute which is labeled as a significant health risk to humans, is drastically safer and extremely well documented to be so, safer to humans than highly processed beat and cane sugars.
To be clear, I'm not declaring any company is evil or that sugar is the work of the devil. I am saying that sugar is extremely well documented to be directly associated with just about every common disease which afflicts mankind. Having said all that, I enjoy a good dessert as much as the next guy.
The fact that you wrote a joke like this (and that it was given a moderation score of 3 by other readers) indicates confusion amongst the Slashdot populace.
The media have tossed about the word "stem cells" very irresponsibly, making it seem like the religious institutions and others (US President Bush) oppose "stem cell research". What the churches and Bush oppose is embyronic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of the embryo.
This article is talking about Mesenchymal stem cells --- adult stem cells, which are not controversial. In fact, religious groups and Bush and others vigorously support adult stem cell research. Bush in 2001 stated the following:
Here are some examples of confusing headlines that the media have deliberately chosen:
"Bush vetoes stem-cell funds bill" (from the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6224134.stm)
"President Bush's cynical stem-cell policy." (an editorial from Slate at http://www.slate.com/id/2090244/ )
"Bush to stem cell community: drop dead" (an editorial from MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13935219/).
All of these headlines are addressing the vetoing of bills to fund embryonic stem cell research, but the headlines misleadingly make it seem like ALL stem cell research is under attack.
In addition, it should be noted that Bush et al were restricting United States government funding of embryonic stem cell research. Unrestricted private funding (not provided by the federal US government)of embryonic stem cell research has always been allowed in the United States, such as that provided through the (private) Howard Hughes Medical Institute http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040304074237.htm , and now state governments such as California and New Jersey. (That's the same Howard Hughes that Leonardio DiCaprio portrayed in the movie "The Aviator" directed by Martin Scorsese.)
Are the ethics of embryonic stem cell research to be taken lightly? Dr. James Thomson was one of the first two laboratories to successfully extract them from embryos:
Simply implant an elastic support mesh anchored to the ribs or breastbone - a kind of an internal bra. You could make it from a net of tendons if you want the "natural" aspect.
"Purpose of grant: to keep large breasts from sagging and remove the need for a bra." I guess that's one way to get funding for stem cell research ;)...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sidenote? You have got to be fucking kidding me.
I've been drinking fluoride-water and using fluoride-toothpaste my entire life, and I have never had a single cavity. I'm not implying that my anecdote is any less meaningless than yours, but mine doesn't come with any sidenotes that are more significant than the "main" point!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I think "nomnomnom" is my favorite tag on /. so far.
"The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said." It's called cancer. Who knows what will happen to this patient in the future. There just isn't enough research about this matter yet.
Women with real breasts larger than a D-cup frequently seek breast reduction surgery
Thats fine, I didn't say E to GG, I meant instead of implants.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The original studies on sacrin were sponcered by sugar growers who then lobbied, using their own "independent" study to prove the dangers to humans. I've certainly slept since I last read the study but IIRC, they fed something like 30x a rodent's body weight of sacrin every 30-days and documented how it caused cancer after many months. Once the FDA labels a product as a health risk, it requires an act of God to get the label removed.
I'm likely not correctly remembering the numbers but you get the idea. If you are 30x your body weight of almost any food additive, it's likely to have serious health implications. Studies done years later not only invalidate the original research but indicate Sacrin is actually one of the safer food additives.
To be clear, I am not advocate one start shooting up sacrin. I am saying the cause of the FDA labeling is well understood and well documented to not be reasonable and well outside of reasonable testing protocols. Of course, one should also seek to limit the numbers of additives in their diet. And to be clear, all artificial sweeteners can have negative effects on the body.
Also, super sweet sweeteners are also believed to be the cause of higher sugar consumption. After a while, your body gets used to certain levels of sweetness and what would once blow the top of your head off as super sweet, is later consumed as "normal". This directly drives higher sugar consumption to satisfy one's sweet tooth. Some studies also suggest this is the cause of lower fruit consumption as the natural sugars no longer taste very sweet, causing fruits to taste bland. These studies also strongly recommend that all dieters remove *all* artificial sweeteners from their diets, **especially** diet colas and sodas from their diet. Those that do, find their sugar cravings are drastically reduced and when they do break from their diet, the "binge effect" is also drastically reduced.
Well it would be awesome if they could seed the root area with a starter cell (there's probably some more scientific name for it.) And instead of having to do a major surgery, the seed would secrete a horomone that makes the defective adult tooth behave like a baby tooth. So after some period of time it disconnects from the bone and blood supply and falls out. After which a newer adult tooth would grow in it's place. (At least that's how I'd envision it working if they did it right.)
Bonus points if they could reprogram the starter cell DNA to grow a smaller and better fitting replacement tooth. I know the four in my upper back are probably duds right now, being that they're hard to clean and I'm short on money for more hi-level upkeep. And this is after having all the wisdom teeth removed.
But the "killing babies" argument is getting old and tired, and is not relevant because nobody kills babies for the express purpose of acquiring stem cells. That's just a lie, pure and simple. They're discarded embryos that have no hope of ever being born ...
You're to be forgiven, since this is not something that is generally known. The abortion industry fuels trafficking in human organs. There are many sites that document this, but here's one http://www.lifedrum.org/abortion_industry_and_planned.htm You might desire a link from a "non-biased" source, but if you found something in the general press, then the information wouldn't be "little known." An industry that uses aborted fetuses as sources of organs will have absolutely no compunction against using that same source for stem cells. And this is not from "discarded embryos." This is from abortions.
Now, I understand that my addition here is somewhat tangental to your main point, which is that we should be engaging in rational discourse, not attempting to inflame the debaters. I do realize that the information above is likely to inflame. However, it's not really rational discourse unless the full extent of the information is clear to all participants.
And this gets to some of your other repliers. They suggest that you are not addressing the same argument that people who argue the pro-life stance. I'll be the first person on the pro-life side to entirely agree with you that this is a "complex psycho-socio-economic problem that has no easy answer." Some of the solutions have to do with societal norms and changes that won't be enacted by laws or other edicts.
As an offer to the entrance to rational debate, I offer a very thoughtful essay written by Carl Sagan, one of the strongest scientific minds in our lifetimes and someone who was in neither the pro-life nor pro-choice camp: http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
Bodytweaking in the future - it doesn't matter what body part you lose, you can regrow it. New disease: uncontrolled teratomatic hypergenesis. Join the Akira club!