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Biotech Science

Print Yourself a Femur 54

Posted by michael from the six-fingers dept.
Scrooge919 writes "Newscientist is running an article about a new 'bone printer' that can be used to replace segments of broken bones. A large segment could be fabricated in about an hour and would be able to support the person's weight. Over the course of about 18 months, the section is absorbed by the body and replaced with real bone."
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Print Yourself a Femur More

Print Yourself a Femur

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  • Oh Oh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jo42 ( 227475 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @03:27PM (#6256740) Homepage
    I can see it now:

    Subject: [ADV] Print yourself a bigger Penis!!!!

  • Uh Oh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dr. Bent ( 533421 ) <<ben> <at> <int.com>> on Friday June 20, 2003 @03:31PM (#6256791) Homepage
    Boy, if you think those InkJet printer cartridges are expensive now.....

  • A day late . . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @03:35PM (#6256840) Homepage Journal

    I just spent $7800 for the hospital to put 2 screw [maniacallaughter.com] in my arm, and am still being told I will most likely never straighten my arm out again.

    I would gladly have spent 3 or 4 times that, to just improve my odds of throwing a baseball once more.

    I can't wait for Star Trek style medical prcedure where a broken bone is just an annoyance until the good doctor can run an LED flashlight over my skin./p

  • Sucks... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bob Vila's Hammer ( 614758 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @03:38PM (#6256860) Homepage Journal
    That this technology is probably wonderfully applicable and needed now but won't be approved by the FDA for years, years to come.
    • being someone who is missing the top half of my tibia, i think i can handle waiting a while.

      i would even be a human beta testing fool.

      • Re:Sucks... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by WasteOfAmmo ( 526018 )
        As someone with about 6-7 years (I hope) left in my current hip replacement and with the possibility of facing (hopefully) 3-4 more (1 per 10-15 years; based on todays technology and my activity level) I also can wait.

        But unfortunately the article does not talk about the possibility of replacing joints or large parts of missing bone (ie. the top of my femur and the part of my socket that was grinded out). Hopefully this technology will progress to the point of providing full joint replacements by the time

        • I see no technological reason that this could not be used to print a joint other than that joints aren't bone-on-bone contact, so you would need some of the tissue that normally sits between them. Unless it can be printed or grown too, that is.

          What would be really cool is combining this with various cloning and accelerated cell growth technologies to build an entire replacement bone in a matter of weeks as opposed to 18 months. Kind of like growing a new heart valve or another unrejectable replacement pa

          • Re:Sucks... (Score:3, Informative)

            by DjMd ( 541962 )
            Without reading the article I can tell you that this "printed bone" can't be used to replace joints.

            The technology is producing a bone matrix replacement, which is nauturally transformed into bone by the body. (due to the nature of the way bone is contsantly being broken down and rebuilt.) The problem is that joint tissue is a whole other ball game. You need cartilage, and a nice joint sinovioum, and neither of these will just form being using a matrix.
            This mostly for better union of broken bones.
  • lol that would be cool!

    we could really BE darth maul for halloween

  • Just wait.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:08PM (#6257174)
    ..until body parts become upgradable.

    "I just stopped the elevator doors from closing!"
  • Here is an example use of this technology [uiuc.edu]. The piece needed was to strengthen the jawbone of an elderly lady. We actually printed it out (plastic, not bone, but you get the idea), and it was shown to fit quite nicely during an operation.

    The problem? FDA won't let the doctors leave it in there. They just got to put it in place and take a few pics before removing it again. So the woman still has a weakened jawbone, despite the fact that the technology exists to help her.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:32PM (#6257399)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:disappointment (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:48PM (#6257559) Journal
      Well, I think these guys [wwf.org] can probably help.

      I recommend getting two; lemur production doesn't work so well with only one lemur machine. Make sure they are compatible; there are two types and you need one of each.

      By the way, it's quite likely that local laws will prevent you from owning a lemur-producing machine. Many types of lemur-producing machines are very rare and once they break, they can't be fixed, so if they all break that's it for lemur-machines. As a result many governments are quite protective of them.

      Also, operation of the lemur machines in such a manner that they will actually produce lemurs and not just consume resources may be very, very tricky; I'm not certain but I do know a lot of other, similar machines often take many skilled experts to cause to produce.

      Anyhow, they're not as user-friendly as you'd like and you can't just pick them up at Best Buy, but you can probably get some lemur machines if you really put your mind to it. Best part of all is there are billions of years behind their development, so they are pretty sophisticated.
    • I thought it said Lemur, not Femur. Haha! :)
  • What the fuck does that mean?!

    And yes, I did use a thesaurus.

  • Dogs (Score:4, Funny)

    by Luigi30 ( 656867 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @09:08PM (#6259218)
    Now when you have a dog, don't dig up a corpse for that bone, just print one out!

  • Government (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Orne ( 144925 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @12:37AM (#6259957) Homepage
    Imagine, there was a time [fda.gov] in the USA before the FDA even existed (1930 to be exact). More recently, there was a time when medicine was a private industry in the USA, and people didn't give a rats ass about getting the government's approval for medical devices (1966).

    Somehow, in 37 years out of the 227 years this country has existed, the nation now thinks that medical advances can only exist after a lengthy approval process, complete with beurocratic red tape, medicare approval, and gov overhead.

    Yes, the government oversees the distribution and purity of drugs, the quality of foodstuffs, and qualifications of our doctors. All that is fine and good. But why have we let ourselves be roped into holding back life-altering discoveries that work just because it doesn't have some commission's stamp on it?

    • Re:Government (Score:2, Insightful)

      by davet ( 13656 )
      But why have we let ourselves be roped into holding back life-altering discoveries that work just because it doesn't have some commission's stamp on it?

      Doesn't that beg the question: How do you tell the "life-altering discoveries that work" from those that don't?

      The only way to be sure, is to test them and have someone stand over them to make sure that the tests are done in a reasonable manner. No amount infomercial airtime, anecdotal testimonials nor authoritative claims by actors dressed up in white la

    • It takes time to complete FDA studies, and even then it's often not enough. Side effects can take decades, or even generations to show up.

      • Mod parent up! (Score:2, Informative)

        by eric2701 ( 231977 )
        The FDA does serve a purpose, Thalidomide is a great example. Ever see a person in their 20's or 30's with an underdevolped limb? Most likely they were born in another country where Thalidomide was allowed as a treatment for morning sickness. Why wasn't it allowed in the US, because no studies had been performed which measured its affect on the pregnancy. Thank you FDA!

        Oh yeah and guess who isn't a big fan of FDA regulation? Orrin Hatch. Turns out Utah is home to many of the big health supplement comp

        • Thanks, Eric. I had to deal with someone close to me who was essentially addicted to ephedrine through daily use of "Mah Huang" aka ephedra sinica, a natural herbal supplement, the active ingredient of which is ephedrine -- which is no less harmful than crank. It can be just as deadly, too -- an overdose can be fatal. Way, Way bad!

          pseudephedrine is the manufactured ingredient, the main ingredient in Sudafed, a leading decongestant. The same people that wouldn't take a handful of Sudafed will go

          • Mah Huang" aka ephedra sinica, a natural herbal supplement, the active ingredient of which is ephedrine -- which is no less harmful than crank.

            Uh, ephedrine is much weaker than methamphetamine. That's why people go through the trouble of making meth - often using ephedrine as a base. (Which is a large part of the reason the Drug Warriors get so bent out of shape about ephedrine.)

            pseudephedrine is the manufactured ingredient, the main ingredient in Sudafed, a leading decongestant

            Exactly. Taking

            • Wellll....what you're describing is an attempt at knowledgable and responsible use. Some of that knowledge, which gives you understanding of how careful you must be, as you have described, is gained in the very type of clinical trials required by the FDA approval process. Unfortunately, where clinical trials are perceived to be biased and regulation perceived to be unnecessarily draconian (criminalised, for example), the only way users of those substances find out the real level of care that needs to be e

              • ...you might feel differently about the importance of the importance of testing their effects (particularly the long-term effects of prolonged use!) and regulating their use.

                I have no problem with the FDA, or anyone else, testing their effects. (Well,I have issues about animal testing, and there are other research ethical issues that can arise, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.) Gathering and publishing accurate data is a good thing. Nor do I have any issue with them educating the public,

    • Ever read 'The Jungle'? Good example of why government approval processes were created. Otherwise, we be back to street peddlers pushing liverpills and mercury as cures for cancer.
    • One word:

      LAWYERS

    • Generally I'm against laws that protect folks from themselves. On the other hand, the fact is that there would be no market for safe drugs if unsafe ones had no restrictions. The average american will see two bottles of pills that have "CURES HEART DISEASE!" on the label. One might be crushed up snake scales. The other might be the product of half a billion dollars worth of research and testing. Of course, the former probably costs $3 a bottle and the latter $80. Which do you think will sell more? Es
    • On a related note: in approximately that same time frame the amount of income the average person spends on taxes (hidden and otherwise, state, federal, fees for car registration, building permits, etc., etc.) has risen from about 8% to just over 50% (remember, in addition your 25% paycheck witholding, your employer pays the government almost that much on your behalf, plus whatever crappy taxes they pay on their own behalf). They have to have something to spend all that money on.

  • Printing living tissues (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cochonou ( 576531 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @05:43AM (#6260654) Homepage
    On a related note, check this older article [newscientist.com].
    It is about printing tissues with modified inkjet printers, a prospect which seems even more fascinating than artificial bone replacements.

  • Teeth? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @12:28PM (#6261819) Homepage
    It seems to me that the ideal application for manufactured bones would be dentistry. After all, teeth are by far the most commonly damaged or destroyed bones. Of course,there are artificial implants right now, but I'm sure many people would prefer to have "real" teeth instead.

    My only question: Is this technique applicable to teeth, or is the mouth too hostile an environment?

    • Re:Teeth? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zer0vector ( 94679 )
      I doubt this would work well with teeth, since by design the "printed" bones are only temporary, intended to be replaced by real, growing bone. Teeth don't grow like other types of bones, so this would most likely not work.

  • I'll be impressed when they can print me a whole (Score:3, Interesting)

    by multiplexo ( 27356 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @06:03PM (#6263641) Journal
    leg. Or at least the part below the knee that I no longer have. This could be a good thing for a lot of people though, I've met a lot of people who have had bone grafts and they're not pleasant (if you think about it bone and graft are two words that just don't go together) and they don't always work.

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