Scientists To Grow Human Bones

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The research could help patients with bad fractures

Scientists are to attempt to grow real human bones outside the body to help patients with skeletal problems. A team at Southampton University hopes to aid sufferers of severe osteoporosis or those with fractures that are taking a long time to heal. Dr Kris Partridge and Dr Richard Oreffo have won a Ј216,000 grant to try to grow replacement bone in the laboratory. A successful technique could then be used to start growth in the bodies of people struggling with badly broken bones. If we can find a safe way of helping bones grow, it could make a great difference to many people's lives

Dr Kris Partridge, Southampton University

They will work with multi-potential adult stem cells, which can develop into bone or cartilage given the right conditions and growth agents.At the moment, scientists must use viruses such as the one that causes the common cold to make the cells grow, which can be dangerous for patients. The team at the university's Bone and Joint Department aims to discover a non-viral way of growing the bone. The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, is in association with a team at the University of Nottingham.

Dr Partridge said: "Bone is a living material and our skeletons renew completely within 10 years. "If we can find a safe way of helping bones grow, it could make a great difference to many people's lives."

Bones are vulnerable in many post-menopausal women
New vitamin' could fight brittle bone

A new form of vitamin D has emerged as a promising possible treatment for the crippling disease osteoporosis, say scientists. Thousands of people, many of them post-menopausal women, suffer from the condition, which can increase the risk of damaging fractures. In animals with conditions similar to osteoporosis, the vitamin increased bone density. Dr Hector DeLuca, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conceded a new drug could be several years off but said it could eventually be important. Bone building drugs - that work on the cells that create new bone - are certainly an area of considerable interest

Spokesman, National Osteoporosis Society
He said: "From where I sit, this is the most promising vitamin D compound I've seen." He suggested that the compound could one day be an alternative to hormone replacement therapy, often used by post-menopausal women to halt bone loss. Long-term use of HRT has been linked with an increased risk of certain diseases, such as cancer or thrombosis.

The laboratory tests involved rats whose ovaries were removed to mimic the menopause. Animals given the new vitamin D analogue managed to achieve a 9% increase in total body bone mass. More importantly, vertebrae - which tend to be worst affected by osteoporosis - in the treated rats showed a 25% improvement.

Osteoporosis is a major health threat to particularly middle-aged or older women. Weakening of bones, particularly at the hip, can lead to fractures in the event of a fall. This can mean that a woman is left permanently disabled, or needs a radical operation such as a hip replacement.The latest study, from Columbia University in the US, used 3D imaging techniques to look deep inside bone samples from the top of the hip bone.

Structure inside

They found that over a period of only a few months, not only did bone volume decrease, but so did important structures from the interior of the bone. This "trabecular architecture" works like scaffolding, criss-crossing the cavity in the center of large bones to increase their strength.

However, on average, the women had not suffered significant bone density reductions in the spine. This means the problem may not have shown up on routine bone scans offered after the menopause.On one group of patients, a drug called Actonel was tested to see if it could prevent the bone loss. The researchers found that trabecular architecture was maintained while taking the drug.

Lifestyle and diet

Dr Jean Aaron, an osteoporosis specialist from the University of Leeds, said that a traditional bone density test might not be as reliable as women believed. She told BBC News Online: "It's possible to get the situation where the bone mass does seem OK, but the architecture is deteriorating". There are some things that women should do, in terms of lifestyle and diet, to improve their bone health. However, the most important factor is the condition of the bones at their peak, at the age of 30, when they stop growing. The research was presented at a meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Francisco.

Fact File

In young people, the rate of bone formation exceeds the rate at which bone cells are reabsorbed by the body. As we age, this process begins to change with the reabsorption of bone cells by the body becoming greater that the speed at which they are reproduced. Hence the skeleton gradually becomes lighter and weaker. The reason why women are more likely to get osteoporosis is because of the rapid drop in estrogen levels after the menopause.

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