Finnish scientists at the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tampere have successfully grown a human jawbone in a man's abdomen and the implanted it in his face. The procedure used the man's stem-cells, and took nine months.
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.
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
