Washington, April 1 (Inditop.com) Scientists have for the first time grown a complex, full-size jaw bone from human adult stem cells.
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, professor of biomedical engineering at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, reports that her team grew a temporomandibular joint (TMJ-joint of the jaw) from stem cells derived from bone marrow.
‘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, 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 personalised bone grafts engineered from the patient’s own stem cells would revolutionise 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 June Wu, a craniofacial surgeon at Columbia University Medical Centre who advised Vunjak-Novakovic on her research.
Vunjak-Novakovic’s technique for turning stem cells into bone was inspired by the body’s natural bone-building process, says a Fu Foundation release.
These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
