Originally published August 2 2005
New bone growth technique unveiled
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A new technique to grow bone in the human body and use it elsewhere to repair damage has been introduced by scientists.
"We have shown we can grow predictable volumes of bone on demand," said V. Prasad Shastri, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, who led the study.
Co-author Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the research has important implications, not only for engineering bone, but for engineering tissues of any kind.
"It has the potential for changing the way that tissue engineering is done in the future," said Langer.
Current approaches involve orthopedic surgeons removing small pieces of bone from a patient's rib or hip and fusing them to the broken bone.
Although it works, the procedure is extremely painful and can produce serious complications.
Scientists say if the new method is confirmed in clinical studies, it will become possible to grow new bone for all types of repairs instead of removing it from existing bones.
The research is described in a paper to be published online next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
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