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This new hydrogel can regrow bone in skulls

March 10, 2017 By Chris Newmarker

regrow bone skull hydrogels
[Image from Unsplash.]
Researchers in Illinois say they were able to regrow bone to repair a hole in a mouse’s skull.

The researchers, based at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, think their work could lead to significant improvement in the care of people with severe skull or face trauma. They say they were able to regenerate skull bone and supporting blood vessels just where they needed to go, surpassing previous bone regrowth methods in speed.

Surgeons often treat skull and facial injuries by grafting bone from other parts of the body of the people they are treating. They harvest bone from the pelvis, ribs or elsewhere. The bone grafting is painful, and it becomes increasingly difficult the larger the graft becomes or the more contoured it needs to be.

The Northwestern University and University of Chicago researchers think their work could someday make such bone grafting obsolete. Their method involved harvesting mouse skull cells and engineering them to produce a protein, BMP9, that promotes bone growth. They then delivered and contained the new cells in the affected area using a hydrogel. The hydrogel, developed by Northwestern biomedical engineering and surgery professor Guillermo Ameer, acted as a temporary scaffold while the engineered skull cells did their job.

Get the full story on our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Filed Under: Featured, Hydrogels, Orthopedics, Regenerative Medicine, Research & Development Tagged With: hydrogels, medtech, Northwestern University, University of Chicago

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About Chris Newmarker

Chris Newmarker is the executive editor of WTWH Media life science's news websites and publications including MassDevice, Medical Design & Outsourcing and more. A professional journalist of 18 years, he is a veteran of UBM (now Informa) and The Associated Press whose career has taken him from Ohio to Virginia, New Jersey and, most recently, Minnesota. He’s covered a wide variety of subjects, but his focus over the past decade has been business and technology. He holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science from Ohio State University. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at cnewmarker@wtwhmedia.com.

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