Finnish Patient Gets New Jaw from His Own Stem Cells 141
An anonymous reader writes with news out of Finland, where a patient's upper jaw was replaced with bone cultivated from stem cells and grown inside the patient himself. We discussed other advances in stem cell research a few months ago. Quoting:
"In this case they identified and pulled out cells called mesenchymal stem cells -- immature cells than can give rise to bone, muscle or blood vessels. When they had enough cells to work with, they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months. The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said."
Bill Gates v2.0 (Score:4, Informative)
And if it's not viable yet, they'll just keep cloning him until they get it right.
I know that if I had $100B, that's how I'd spend it.
Re:The source article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How much did it cost? (Score:2, Informative)
Dentists have been doing this for years (Score:5, Informative)
There is no such thing as an "upper jaw." We have various bones forming the base of the skull and associated teeth structures (aka maxilla) and a lower jaw (aka mandible).
Dentists have been using stem cells for years. In certain situations when there are not enough bone to place dental implants, dentists would place bonegrafts mixed in with blood drawn from the hip marrow. You get around 5-10 stem cells for every million blood cells but that's all it takes to convert the bonegraft into the patient's own bone (the stem cells become osteoblasts). The only difference in this study versus what we have been doing is that they place the bonegraft with stem cells into the stomach for osteoconduction versus us placing the material into place right off the bat. Typical wait times for us is only 6 months before the bone is deemed solid enough for implant placement.
Re:Wow, they didn't even kill an unborn baby (Score:2, Informative)
These are not embryonic stem cells (Score:1, Informative)
The fact that you wrote a joke like this (and that it was given a moderation score of 3 by other readers) indicates confusion amongst the Slashdot populace.
The media have tossed about the word "stem cells" very irresponsibly, making it seem like the religious institutions and others (US President Bush) oppose "stem cell research". What the churches and Bush oppose is embyronic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of the embryo.
This article is talking about Mesenchymal stem cells --- adult stem cells, which are not controversial. In fact, religious groups and Bush and others vigorously support adult stem cell research. Bush in 2001 stated the following:
Here are some examples of confusing headlines that the media have deliberately chosen:
"Bush vetoes stem-cell funds bill" (from the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6224134.stm [bbc.co.uk])
"President Bush's cynical stem-cell policy." (an editorial from Slate at http://www.slate.com/id/2090244/ [slate.com] )
"Bush to stem cell community: drop dead" (an editorial from MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13935219/ [msn.com]).
All of these headlines are addressing the vetoing of bills to fund embryonic stem cell research, but the headlines misleadingly make it seem like ALL stem cell research is under attack.
In addition, it should be noted that Bush et al were restricting United States government funding of embryonic stem cell research. Unrestricted private funding (not provided by the federal US government)of embryonic stem cell research has always been allowed in the United States, such as that provided through the (private) Howard Hughes Medical Institute http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040304074237.htm [sciencedaily.com] , and now state governments such as California and New Jersey. (That's the same Howard Hughes that Leonardio DiCaprio portrayed in the movie "The Aviator" directed by Martin Scorsese.)
Are the ethics of embryonic stem cell research to be taken lightly? Dr. James Thomson was one of the first two laboratories to successfully extract them from embryos: