New Method Shows It Is Possible To Grow Bone For Grafts Within A Patient’s Body

An international team of biomedical engineers has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to grow healthy new bone reliably in one part of the body and use it to repair damaged bone at a different location. The research, which is based on a dramatic departure from the current practice in tissue engineering, is described in a paper titled “In vivo engineering of organs: The bone bioreactor” published online next week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.