Artificial bone scaffold combines stem cells and plastic to heal broken bones
February 11, 2013
Scanning electron microscope image (g) of a vertical cross-section of a plastic scaffold shows porous channel formation between 50–600 microns length. Arrows in magnified area (highlighted in (g)) in ( h) indicate sub-micron pores. (Credit: Ferdous Khan et al./Advanced Functional Materials)
To improve bone healing, researchers at Edinburgh and Southampton universities have used a honeycomb scaffold structure, which allows blood to flow through it, enabling stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow to attach to the material and grow new bone.
Proteins from skeletal stem cells cultured on a plastic scaffold (credit: Ferdous Khan et al./Advanced Functional Materials)
Over time, the plastic slowly degrades as the implant is replaced by newly grown bone.
The researchers used a pioneering technique to blend and test hundreds of combinations of plastics to find the perfect blend of materials that was robust, lightweight, and able to support bone stem cells.
After getting successful results in the lab and in animal testing, the research is now moving towards human clinical evaluation.
“We are confident that this material could soon be helping to improve the quality of life for patients with severe bone injuries, and will help maintain the health of an aging population,” said Professor Mark Bradley of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry.
The study was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Comments (4)
by Peter the Printer
This sounds amazing, not too sure of the animal testing bit – do they break bones in order to see if they mend? – but having just a week ago smashed my forearm bones, one into five pieces, I can see this could mean less trauma. Mine had to be plated together, and as some were small, so difficult to pin, the pain was horrendous because of the extent of engineering that was necessarey. I’m literally single handed for three more weeks, when it will all come off, faster than it once was.
by asiwel
This sort of thing is a wonderful advance. My dentist uses bone “graft” and tissue restoration techiques to insure there is enough bone to securely replace lost teeth with long lasting, excellent implants. These are way more expensive but they certainly beat simply pulling and losing teeth, fiddling with partials and bridges, etc. This is the fastest, most painless, and most useful dental procedure I have ever experienced .. although time must be allowed for healing. (This also makes me think I chose the wrong profession considering the cost of the 15 sec process! … unfortunately dental insurance does not cover the bone replacement procedure.)
by AZryan
I assumed that when someone broke a bone, none (or little) of the bone is usually ‘lost’, so they just try to reset the pieces and put it in a cast or something to keep it in place.
So I’m not sure how this works? As a sort of glue? Or does it get wrapped around a bone (that wouldn’t seem right)? Or just meant to bond/fill in any little gaps?
Oh well…suppose however it gets used, it better than what we had so that’s cool. Just didn’t quite get it.
by Bri
Many times when someone breaks a bone it shatters. Particularly with large blunt impacts. We think of boe as being hard and strong. A fireman jumped from a burning building a few years ago and he said when he hit the ground it sounded and felt like a bottle breaking in a bag. When the fragments are too small to knit back together they can only remove them and put in metal. Unfortunately bone and metal really don’t bond well. They make the metal very porous so the bone tissue can infuse into it as much as possible, but the boundary isn’t anywhere near as strong as the original bone. There are also many degenerative circumstances. My father has an advanced basilar skin cancer. It may invade his bone in his chin. If that happens it would have to be cut out and a implant put in to replace it.. Many head injuries require metal plates to be implanted. This tech will eliminate all of these inferior repair modalities. The improvements in quality of life will be substantial.