Jaw Bone Grown from Adult Stem Cells

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2010) — A Columbia scientist has become the first to grow a complex, full-size bone from human adult stem cells.

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, reports that her team grew a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) from stem cells derived from bone marrow. Her work is reported in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month.

"The TMJ has been widely studied as a tissue-engineering model because it cannot be generated easily, if at all, by current methods," says Vunjak-Novakovic, whose co-authors include Warren L. Grayson, then a post-doctoral student in her lab and now an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. Around 25 percent of the population suffers from TMJ disorders -- including those who suffer from cancer, birth defects, trauma and arthritis -- which can cause joint deterioration. Because the TMJ is such a complex structure, it is not easily grafted from other bones in a patient's body. "The availability of personalized bone grafts engineered from the patient's own stem cells would revolutionize the way we currently treat these defects," she says.

Current methods of treating traumatic injury to the jaw include taking a bone from the patient's leg or hip to replace the missing bone. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get the patient's own stem cells and grow a new jaw?" says Dr. June Wu, a craniofacial surgeon at Columbia University Medical Center who advised Vunjak-Novakovic on her research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330152437.htm


Vunjak-Novakovic used CT images (A and B) to build a TMJ-shaped scaffold (C). (Credit: Image courtesy of The Record, Columbia University)

[Jamastiene]

1. It would be great if there was a way to use this technology to help

TMJD sufferers. I'd be willing to bet all of us would greatly appreciate it.

[Warpy]

2. At last!

We've been so far behind the rest of the world for so long because of misguided religious dogma parading as science that it's great to see solid research finally being done.

I have family on lists for heart, lung and kidney transplant. I have a corneal transplant. I'd love to see them all rendered obsolete by stem cell research.

[Common Sense Party]

3. I thought research on adult stem cells has been going on for years

unhampered. Every few months we see some study about this, that or the other that adult stem cells appear to help.

[Warpy]

6. NIH funding was denied for the whole 8 years of Stupid's reign

and that funding is the largest source of pure research funding available. A few already existing stem cell lines were grandfathered into some of the research, but many of those lines were contaminated beyond usefulness.

Some limited research using private funding did continue, but it was so limited that this country is decades behind the rest of the world now.

We're playing catch up.

[Common Sense Party]

7. I thought the funding was denied on embryonic stem cell lines

but adult cell research continued.

[Warpy]

9. Adult cells are differentiated

and can make only that specific type of tissue: bone marrow stem cells making blood cells, fat stem cells making only that type of tissue.

You can't trick a fat cell into creating lung or blood, in other words.

[brendan120678]

4. Most of the religious opposition that I am aware of...

isn't with stem cell research in general.
It's embryonic stem cell research that they oppose.

[Warpy]

5. Unfortunately, those are the necessary stem cells

because they're completely undifferentiated.

Bone marrow stem cells make blood and fat stem cells can make various tissues, but only the embryonic cells can make everything.

Again, muzzy headed religious dogma says a blastocyst of embryonic cells is a living, breathing human being. It's not.

Real living, breathing human beings are in need of cures the blastocyst can provide.

[TheMadMonk]

8. Not quite. There has been considerable progress in creating...

...fully undifferentiated stemcells from adult cells.

However, a lot of that progress comes as a result of studies and experiments on embryonic cells.


Cells harvested from embryos were never going to be a significant source of organs for transplantation. For a little while the most promising method was to create a celular clone and harvest stem cells from that.

This is a way of avoiding any stage where a "viable" entity exists.