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posted by martyb on Thursday October 15 2020, @07:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-rinds-were-harmed-in-the-making-of-this-jawbone dept.

Scientists Synthesize Jawbones From Pig Fat (archive)

In patients with congenital defects or who have suffered accidental injuries, the jawbone is nearly impossible to replace. Curved and complex, the bone ends with a joint covered with a layer of cartilage. Both parts must withstand enormous pressures as people chew.

"It is one of the most loaded bones in the human body," said Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor of biomedical engineering, medicine and dental medicine at Columbia University in New York.

In a paper published in Science Translational Medicine [DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abb6683] [DX] on Wednesday, she and her colleagues reported a surprising success: They managed to grow replacement bones, along with their joints, from the stem cells of pigs. A clinical trial will soon begin in patients with severe birth defects.

The researchers say they hope the same sort of technique can someday be used to grow other replacement bones and joints, including knees. Even if the strategy works, however, it will be years before those who need new jawbones or joints can have them engineered from their own cells.

Journal Reference:
David Chen, Josephine Y. Wu, Kelsey M. Kennedy, et al. Tissue engineered autologous cartilage-bone grafts for temporomandibular joint regeneration [$], Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abb6683)


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  • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday October 15 2020, @08:49PM (3 children)

    by Booga1 (6333) on Thursday October 15 2020, @08:49PM (#1065176)

    Now THIS is scientific research I think people can get behind. Imagine being able to ditch all those immune suppressing treatments that come with transplants. This would probably eliminate almost all host-recipient rejection issues and save a lot of lives in the process.
    If I'm lucky, maybe they'll even have it ready by the time I need a knee or hip replacement.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @12:51AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @12:51AM (#1065253)

      Serious question, not trolling here. If people have enough money to pay for those obcenely expensive dental implants, how come they didn't have enough money to go to the dentist on a regular basis and avoid needing those implants in the first place ?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @01:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @01:32AM (#1065264)

        If people have enough money to pay for those obcenely expensive dental implants, how come they didn't have enough money to go to the dentist on a regular basis and avoid needing those implants in the first place ?

        That question has different answers depending on which country you're in. My experience in America is that dental health insurance is separate from "regular" health insurance. Some plans can be nearly worthless in practice.
        For example: my friend's dental insurance was through his company plan. It was $14/mo($0 deductible) and covered 100% of expenses, but maxed out at $500 yearly benefit. He needed $2500 of work done and cost him $2000. After seeing how worthless it was, financially speaking, he just dropped it. He's back to just hoping nothing goes wrong, no insurance.
        Now we come to the implants... They advertise on TV and radio and cost thousands of dollars. That's OK though, because you won't be paying for it up front. See, they'll give you financing. They're selling you teeth on a payment plan, not a payment plan that might save your teeth. Concrete benefits, no money up front, sign the form, receive treatment.

        People frequently ignore silent problems until they're too big to fix cheaply. That's only a problem for insurance, not the implants. Regular dentists need to get paid by you or the insurance. The implant dentists will just stretch out the payment plan until it fits your budget.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nostyle on Friday October 16 2020, @01:45PM

      by nostyle (11497) on Friday October 16 2020, @01:45PM (#1065373) Journal

      This story raises so many questions...

      1) If stem cells from swine fat can be used to grow replacement bones, does this mean that we won't need to be preserving umbilical cords of newborns for future stem cell harvesting?

      2) (And can we put umbilical banks in space to reduce the cost of cryogenic storage?)

      3) (And if, when my mother delivered my younger brother stillborn, the carcass had been preserved, would that have been potentially of benefit to me?)

      4) Is it even conceivable, given a fully grown jaw-bone, that it could be surgically inserted "in your face"? - (It seems to me that this would be pretty nearly brain-surgery complicated.)

      5) How many people would ever need a full replacement of a jaw-bone anyway, and would the economics of a jaw-bone replacement industry ever make sense?

      6) Jaws aren't much good without teeth, so do the teeth automagically grow on the jaw, or do they need to be grown separately?

      7) If you can grow teeth separately and implant them, could this revolutionize dentistry?

      8) Wouldn't it make more sense to only pin in a small section of jaw-bone leaving only dual-breakage of bone to heal naturally?

      9) What happens to the nerves that go to the teeth when jaw replacement surgery is done?

      10) Why would the FSM ever let these jaw defects to occur in his noodley creation?

      --

      Please excuse me if my ignorance is showing.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2020, @09:07PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2020, @09:07PM (#1065180)

    Pork ribs anyone?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2020, @09:56PM (#1065196)

      Ah, trying to get a head-start on the political topics of the 2030's? Don't worry, the ethical concerns surrounding clonal autophagy will keep us busy for a while.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @09:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2020, @09:50PM (#1065606)

        We should only give up half of our rights to AI artilects.

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