News story: A good reason for supporting stem cell research

[Guest guest]

This story is on Yahoo News today. It's pretty amazing, and another

reason why I think stem cell research is important and should be

permitted.

Doctors Grow New Jaw Bone in Man's Back

By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer (Yahoo)

LONDON - A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer has

enjoyed his first meal in nine years — a bratwurst sandwich — after

surgeons grew a new jaw bone in his back muscle and transplanted it

to his mouth in what experts call an " ambitious " experiment.

According to this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal, the

German doctors used a mesh cage, a growth chemical and the patient's

own bone marrow, containing stem cells, to create a new jaw bone that

fit exactly into the gap left by the cancer surgery.

Tests have not been done yet to verify whether the bone was created

by the blank-slate stem cells and it is too early to tell whether the

jaw will function normally in the long term. But the operation is the

first published report of a whole bone being engineered and incubated

inside a patient's body and transplanted.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body that go on to become

every tissue in the body. They are a hot area of research with

scientists trying to find ways to prompt them to make desired

tissues, and perhaps organs.

But while researchers debate whether the technique resulted in a

scientific advance involving stem cells, the operation has achieved

its purpose and changed a life, said Stan Gronthos, a stem cell

expert at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in

Adelaide, Australia.

" A patient who had previously lost his mandible (lower jaw) through

the result of a destructive tumor can now sit down and chew his first

solid meals in nine years ... resulting in an improved quality of

life, " said Gronthos, who was not connected with the experiment.

The operation was done by Dr. Warnke, a reconstructive facial

surgeon at the University of Kiel in Germany. The patient, a 56-year-

old man, had his lower jaw and half his tongue cut out almost a

decade ago after getting mouth cancer. Since then, he had only been

able to slurp soft food or soup from a spoon.

In similar cases, doctors can sometimes replace a lost jawbone by

cutting out a piece of bone from the lower leg or from the hip and

chiseling it to fit into the mouth.

This patient could not have that procedure because he was taking a

potent blood thinner for another condition and doctors considered it

too dangerous to harvest bone from elsewhere in his body since

extraction leaves a hole where the bone is taken, creating an extra

risk of bleeding.

Artificial jaws made from plastic or other materials are not used

because they pose too much of a risk of infection.

" He demanded reconstruction, " Warnke said. " This patient was really

sick of living. "

Warnke and his group began by creating a virtual jaw on a computer,

after making a three-dimensional scan of the patient's mouth.

The information was used to create a thin titanium micro-mesh cage.

Several cow-derived pure bone mineral blocks the size of sugar lumps

where then put inside the structure, along with a human growth factor

that builds bone and a large squirt of blood extracted from the man's

bone marrow, which contains stem cells.

The surgeons then implanted the mesh cage and its contents into the

muscle below the patient's right shoulder blade. He was given no

drugs, other than routine antibiotics to prevent infection from the

surgery.

The implant was left in for seven weeks, when scans showed new bone

formation. It was removed about eight weeks ago, along with some

surrounding muscle and blood vessels, put in the man's mouth and

connected to the blood vessels in his neck.

Scans showed new bone continued to form after the transplant.

Four weeks after the operation, the man ate a German sausage

sandwich, his first real meal in nine years. He eats steak now, but

complains to his doctor that because he has no teeth he has to cut it

into such small pieces that by the time he gets to the end of the

steak, it's cold.

He has reported no pain or any other difficulties associated with the

transplant, Warnke said, adding that he hopes to be able to remove

the mesh and implant teeth in the new jaw about a year from now.

Brown, head of the Center for Tissue Regeneration Science at

University College in London, said it's not clear any major

scientific ground has been broken, and tests may not be able to show

whether the new bone came from stem cells, rather than from the

growth factor alone.

The operation put established techniques together, resembling a well-

known experiment in which University of Massachusetts scientists grew

a human ear using a mold on the back of a mouse in 1995, he said.

" If you put loads of blocks of bone mineral into a hole and you

induce cellular activity by putting in growth factors, it's a

standard approach that people have used to induce the body's own

response, " said Brown, who was not connected with the study. " Clearly

some of them are going to work and it sounds like for this patient,

this has worked. "

Biopsies of the jaw bone could later provide some answers on the

quality of the bone, experts said.

" Just making the gross tissue shape right isn't really the problem, "

Brown said. " It's what the shape of the tissue is at the microscopic

and ultramicroscopic level. That's the architecture which is so

tricky and which is what gives function. "

[Guest guest]

This story is on Yahoo News today. It's pretty amazing, and another

reason why I think stem cell research is important and should be

permitted.

Doctors Grow New Jaw Bone in Man's Back

By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer (Yahoo)

LONDON - A German who had his lower jaw cut out because of cancer has

enjoyed his first meal in nine years — a bratwurst sandwich — after

surgeons grew a new jaw bone in his back muscle and transplanted it

to his mouth in what experts call an " ambitious " experiment.

According to this week's issue of The Lancet medical journal, the

German doctors used a mesh cage, a growth chemical and the patient's

own bone marrow, containing stem cells, to create a new jaw bone that

fit exactly into the gap left by the cancer surgery.

Tests have not been done yet to verify whether the bone was created

by the blank-slate stem cells and it is too early to tell whether the

jaw will function normally in the long term. But the operation is the

first published report of a whole bone being engineered and incubated

inside a patient's body and transplanted.

Stem cells are the master cells of the body that go on to become

every tissue in the body. They are a hot area of research with

scientists trying to find ways to prompt them to make desired

tissues, and perhaps organs.

But while researchers debate whether the technique resulted in a

scientific advance involving stem cells, the operation has achieved

its purpose and changed a life, said Stan Gronthos, a stem cell

expert at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in

Adelaide, Australia.

" A patient who had previously lost his mandible (lower jaw) through

the result of a destructive tumor can now sit down and chew his first

solid meals in nine years ... resulting in an improved quality of

life, " said Gronthos, who was not connected with the experiment.

The operation was done by Dr. Warnke, a reconstructive facial

surgeon at the University of Kiel in Germany. The patient, a 56-year-

old man, had his lower jaw and half his tongue cut out almost a

decade ago after getting mouth cancer. Since then, he had only been

able to slurp soft food or soup from a spoon.

In similar cases, doctors can sometimes replace a lost jawbone by

cutting out a piece of bone from the lower leg or from the hip and

chiseling it to fit into the mouth.

This patient could not have that procedure because he was taking a

potent blood thinner for another condition and doctors considered it

too dangerous to harvest bone from elsewhere in his body since

extraction leaves a hole where the bone is taken, creating an extra

risk of bleeding.

Artificial jaws made from plastic or other materials are not used

because they pose too much of a risk of infection.

" He demanded reconstruction, " Warnke said. " This patient was really

sick of living. "

Warnke and his group began by creating a virtual jaw on a computer,

after making a three-dimensional scan of the patient's mouth.

The information was used to create a thin titanium micro-mesh cage.

Several cow-derived pure bone mineral blocks the size of sugar lumps

where then put inside the structure, along with a human growth factor

that builds bone and a large squirt of blood extracted from the man's

bone marrow, which contains stem cells.

The surgeons then implanted the mesh cage and its contents into the

muscle below the patient's right shoulder blade. He was given no

drugs, other than routine antibiotics to prevent infection from the

surgery.

The implant was left in for seven weeks, when scans showed new bone

formation. It was removed about eight weeks ago, along with some

surrounding muscle and blood vessels, put in the man's mouth and

connected to the blood vessels in his neck.

Scans showed new bone continued to form after the transplant.

Four weeks after the operation, the man ate a German sausage

sandwich, his first real meal in nine years. He eats steak now, but

complains to his doctor that because he has no teeth he has to cut it

into such small pieces that by the time he gets to the end of the

steak, it's cold.

He has reported no pain or any other difficulties associated with the

transplant, Warnke said, adding that he hopes to be able to remove

the mesh and implant teeth in the new jaw about a year from now.

Brown, head of the Center for Tissue Regeneration Science at

University College in London, said it's not clear any major

scientific ground has been broken, and tests may not be able to show

whether the new bone came from stem cells, rather than from the

growth factor alone.

The operation put established techniques together, resembling a well-

known experiment in which University of Massachusetts scientists grew

a human ear using a mold on the back of a mouse in 1995, he said.

" If you put loads of blocks of bone mineral into a hole and you

induce cellular activity by putting in growth factors, it's a

standard approach that people have used to induce the body's own

response, " said Brown, who was not connected with the study. " Clearly

some of them are going to work and it sounds like for this patient,

this has worked. "

Biopsies of the jaw bone could later provide some answers on the

quality of the bone, experts said.

" Just making the gross tissue shape right isn't really the problem, "

Brown said. " It's what the shape of the tissue is at the microscopic

and ultramicroscopic level. That's the architecture which is so

tricky and which is what gives function. "