BehindTheMedspeak: Grow your own replacement parts

Timetable: within a decade.

Dr. Jeremy J. Mao, one of the world's leaders in tissue engineering (you'll be hearing this term a lot in years to come) and his team from the University of Illinois in Chicago have succeeded in growing fat-producing adipose cells similar to those in breast tissue from human stem cells taken from the bone marrow of a healthy young human volunteer.

The scientists then put the cells into a biodegradable "hydrogel" scaffold that can be modelled into any size or shape.

Eight cell-seeded scaffolds were implanted under the skin of laboratory mice lacking immune systems to avoid rejection of the human cells.

When the scaffolds were removed after a month the researchers found the implants were populated with human adipose cells, and had retained their original size and shape.

Mao said using natural implants generated from stem cells would avoid many of the problems of synthetic implants in cosmetic breast surgery and other applications.

The work was presented on February 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

The full report is to be published in the April issue of the journal Tissue Engineering.

[via Clive Cookson and The Financial Times]