New medical gel grows bone tissue exactly where you need it

Summary:
At Rice University, a certain gel has been created that helps bone tissue production for patients who cannot produce enough bone tissue themselves.  Being a dual gelation process, the first part starts off with a cold polymer just a bit under room temperature.  After it warms up to body temperature, it undergoes a thermal gelation which is a hardening to surround any growth factors or stem cells that might be absorbed into the gel.  Next, scientists created a secondary gelation component that stabilizes the gel and prevents any break down after the primary gelation occurs, and this is added to the first component right before the gel is injected into the mold.  What the gel really ends up doing is that it delivers stem cells or growth factors into a selected region of bone tissue defects which ultimately helps regenerate bone.  All doctors need to do is inject the gel and leave the rest up to time and nature. This new innovation would overall be an extreme benefit because in some cases of large defects, due to a limited amount bone tissue it's hard to harvest bone tissue from other places in the body.

Connection:
This connects to our study of the human skeletal system and how we examined different parts of a bone such as the spongy bone on the inside and the more durable compact bone on the outside.  Other parts of the bone we discussed in class were the two bone marrows: red and yellow.  We also covered osteoclasts which destroy bone and osteoblasts which create bone.  There was also the skeletal presentation that talked about a couple of different diseases that affect bones.  For example, there was a presentation on osteoporosis and how it ends up weakening the bone since the osteoblasts' bone production rate cannot keep up with the osteoclasts' bone destruction rate.  The osteoclasts could also deteriorate bone marrow which would affect the bone's storage function and red blood cell creation.  With this new gel, people who have bone diseases or who have certain bone defects may be able to treat or potentially cure their bone illnesses because of the fact that the gel stimulates and promotes bone growth and regeneration.

Author: Jon Fingas
Date of Publication: May 11, 2014
Link: http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/11/hydrogel-bone-growth/