Researchers Find New Way To Heal Broken Bones With Futuristic Bandage
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – British researchers say they've found a new way to heal broken bones.
The team at King's College London created a futuristic bandage made from a new bio-material that heals broken bones when implanted onto the site of the fracture.
Dr. Shukry Habib, the lead investigator, says, "We can apply them on the really large bone fracture, and we see that they promote bone repair."
The bandage is coated in a protein that enhances the bone's natural ability to repair, which speeds up the recovery process.
Scientists found the bandage works even quicker when loaded up with a 3D collagen gel containing bone cells grown from a patient's stem cells.
"Human bone forming stem cells, we culture them on the bandage, and we engineer a 3D tissue within one week," Dr. Habib says.
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Scientists hope to expand the technology to treat more than just broken bones, taking aim at damage anywhere in the body.
"To target stem cells within injury sites of other organs and see if they can also promote the repair of that tissue," Dr. Habib says.
The treatment has already been tested successfully on mice, and scientists are now pushing for clinical trials on people.
Once the bone has healed, researchers say the bandage is designed to be absorbed by the body.
