Creating human bones from stem cells and 3D printing technology

The American company EpiBone has succeeded in creating bones from human cells, opening a revolution in medicine.

EpiBone's 3D skeleton. Photo: EpiBone

According to Live Science, human bones are the second most replaced organ in the world, after blood, with a total cost of about $5 billion per year. If a healthy bone is lost due to an accident or disease, or a congenital bone defect, the current solution is to replace it with animal bone or donor bone. However, rejection complications are very likely to occur, leading to infection or implant errors after surgery.

Another safer way is to cut bone from another part of the body and graft it to the needed area. This is currently the best solution for patients who need bone grafting. However, the consequence is that the body areas with missing bone will have difficulty moving.

American film critic Roger Ebert, who lost his jaw to cancer, also had his hip and shoulder bones removed to make way for jaw implants. For children with congenital bone defects, the problem is even more serious because their skeletal systems are not fully developed.

Many methods are being researched to solve this problem, such as using 3D printing technology to create bone parts for transplantation, suitable for each patient's defect, or using stem cell methods to support bone regeneration.

EpiBone’s new approach is a natural combination of these trends. First, a CT scan is performed to create a precise 3D image of the bone that needs to be engineered and a scaffold is created. Then, a sample of the patient’s fat is extracted to extract stem cells. The stem cells grow on the 3D scaffold to form the complete bone graft.

The scaffold and stem cells will be cultured in a special growth chamber, called a bioreactor, that simulates conditions in the human body. Temperature, humidity, acidity, and nutrients must all be at the right levels for the stem cells to transform into bone-growing cells (osteoblasts) on the 3D scaffold.

After three weeks, the 3D skeleton will transform into a human bone segment with the appropriate shape for each patient. Because it is developed from the patient's own stem cells, the probability of the body rejecting it is very small.

Much research remains to be done before this technique can be officially applied to humans, although artificial bone transplantation on pigs has been successful. The scientific basis for this method is that stem cells can turn into any type of cell in the body, if the appropriate conditions are simulated. Although there are still many difficulties, the research team believes that bone deformities or accidents that cause bone damage will be pushed back with this new technology.

According to VnExpress