Man Grows New Jaw from Stem Cells

A 65-year-old Finnish man received a new upper jaw that was grown in his abdomen using his own stem cells. Scientists had isolated stem cells from the patient’s fat, and sorted out the type of cells that could grow into bone tissue. The cells were applied to a custom jaw-shaped scaffold and implanted in his abdomen for nine months. Tissues grew around the scaffolding, which was removed and attached to the man’s skull to replace his upper jaw, which had been removed due to a tumor.

“There have been a couple of similar-sounding procedures before, but these didn’t use the patient’s own stem cells that were first cultured and expanded in laboratory and differentiated into bone tissue,” said Riitta Suuronen of the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine, part of the University of Tampere.

She told a news conference the patient was recovering more quickly than he would have if he had received a bone graft from his leg.

“From the outside nobody would be able to tell he has been through such a procedure,” she said.

Growing custom parts from a patient’s own stem cells not only bypasses the shortage of organs, but also eliminates the risk of tissue rejection. Link -via Metafilter