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UGA Researchers Develop "Putty" to Speed Bone Healing

The substance uses adult stem cells and gel and has been successful with small animals.

 

Preliminary studies by researchers at the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center (RBC) have shown that a new process speeds the healing of broken bones in test animals.

“Complex fractures are a major cause of amputation of limbs for U.S. military men and women,” said , director of the UGA Regenerative Bioscience Center., in a press release. He's working to develop a rapid bone-healing process with John Peroni, an associate professor in the . The new procedure has potential applications in both human and veterinary medicine.

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Peroni and Stice are leading a large animal research project focused on bone-tissue engineering and funded by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The project includes scientists and surgeons from the Baylor University College of Medicine, Rice University and the University of Texas, who conducted the early studies.

Engineering new bone

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“Healing of critical-size defects is a major challenge to the orthopedic research community,” Peroni said. “Large-bone defects must be stabilized and necessitate technologies that induce rapid bone formation in order to replace the missing tissue and allow the individual to return to rapid function. To date, no single material can suffice.”

The group has already managed to form new bone in sheep in less than four weeks. It is the rapidity with in which bone is regenerated that is truly unique features of this process.

The research has been funded by a $1.4 million grant from the DOD.

 “In our experiences with large animal models,” says Stice, “we have been successful in formulating a product that contains mesenchymal stem cells and allows them to survive in the environment of the fracture long enough to elicit the rapid formation of new bone.”

The new process incorporates adult stem cells into a gel that Stice calls “fracture putty.”

This substance allowed repair of fractured bones in rats in only two weeks. The RBC researchers are testing the material in pigs as well.

“The small-animal work has progressed, and we are making good progress in large animals,” Stice says.

 


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