# 'Injectable Bone'



## pardus (Jan 3, 2009)

This is pretty damn cool!
Medicine is going to make amazing bounds in the next 20 years, I'm kind of excited about it.



*Made to Heal Breaks in a Hurry*

Discovery News

Dec. 31, 2008 -- It can take months for bones to heal after even a small break. Now a U.K. company, RegenTec, hopes to speed up the healing process by injecting a white powder designed to seal broken bones together in minutes. 

"You won't be able to just walk out of a hospital with a broken leg," said Robin Quirk, a professor at the University of Nottingham who, along with Kevin Shakesheff in the United States, originally developed the technology. "What we are trying to do in the short term is have something that fills the void left by a break that acts like normal spongy bone and encourages natural regeneration." 

The proprietary mix of ceramic and polylactic acid is called, for now, Injectable Bone. 

At room temperature, it is an inert white powder. Once injected into a break site with a needle stick, however, the body's higher temperature causes the two materials to fuse together in a hard, spongy mass much like living bone. 

Injectable Bone isn't the only bone glue out there. Others exist, although they have some problems. In some cases they harden in a solid mass or raise body temperature at the injection site enough to damage nearby tissue. 

Injectable Bone could actually encourage bone growth, when bone-producing cells and growth-encouraging drugs are mixed in with the powder mixture. The cells fill up the holes with natural bone as the Injectable Bone degrades into lactic acid, a compound produced naturally by the body. 

"We can actually control the rate of degradation to tailor it to the individual's healing," said Quirk. 

Injectable Bone isn't meant to permanently replace natural bone, just give the body time to repair. 

Multiple fractures on the same bone can be difficult to set and heal property. To hold the bone fragments in proper alignment, doctors place surgical pins and rods that can be painful to remove. Injectable Bone could replace the metal surgical pins currently used to help bone heal, its makers say. 

It won't, however, allow patients to forego plaster casts. The glue binds bone together but isn't strong enough to bear weight. 

Injectable Bone should sell well, said Jennifer Elisseef, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Elisseef has her own company, Cartilix, that focuses on materials to replace broken cartilage. 

"There is a lot of interest in bone filler materials from clinicians and from the military," said Elisseef. 

RegenTec claims it will have Injectable Bone stateside within 18 months. That's an optimistic number, said Elisseef, adding that FDA approval will likely take longer than that. 

In the long run, Injectable Bone could also become Injectable Heart, said Quirk: "Following a heart attack...the appropriate cells could be delivered to help re-grow tissue." 

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/12/31/injectable-bone.html


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## 7point62 (Jan 3, 2009)

Union of a femur fracture 12-14 weeks. I wonder how much this will speed things up. Might be very good for fractured ribs.


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## Gypsy (Jan 3, 2009)

Gotta love it when they come up with such awesomeness.  

Injectable Heart...damn!


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## QC (Jan 3, 2009)

An old girlfriend of mine is having similar from a split patella. I'll have to ask her exactly wtf is the glue they used.


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## Chopstick (Jan 3, 2009)

I wasnt quite sure what to expect based on the title of this thread..and that Pardus was the thread starter!
Interesting article T!
I wonder if that stuff would have been available a couple of years ago..if Id have lost as much of my damn kneecap as I did?:uhh:


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## Trip_Wire (Jan 3, 2009)

When I broke my left Femur a couple of years ago, they used some bone from my left hip and also some cadaver bone to help heal the injury. I still have some 15 or 15 screws and a ladder looking device in the leg as well. The wound got infected and the doctors told me if they were unable to stop the infection, they would have to take all out and start over again.

They gave me a butt pack with a device inside to wear that automatically injected antibiotics on a time schedule and updated the device, when more antibiotics were needed. needed. It did kill the infection. I was in a wheelchair for a year. Now one leg is shorter than the other.


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## 7point62 (Jan 5, 2009)

Trip_Wire said:


> they used some bone from my left hip and also some cadaver bone...




Amazing what they can do with dead body parts. Medicine gets more like car repair everyday.


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## CPTAUSRET (Jan 5, 2009)

It's nice to read reports such as this one.   

Small hijack: My wife studies the brain, she was awarded the National Medal of Science (2000) for pioneering the field of brain imaging, and using it to study mental illness.


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## WillBrink (Jan 5, 2009)

pardus762 said:


> This is pretty damn cool!
> Medicine is going to make amazing bounds in the next 20 years, I'm kind of excited about it.



As am I. There will be some truly astounding breakthroughs in the next 10-20 years if things continue to progress as they should, political, funding, etc, notwithstanding. The next 30-50 years will take us in what would be science fiction to use now. Read "The Singularity Is Near" By Dr Ray Kurzwhile some time. He's been right far more often then wrong in his predictions, and what he predicts for 30-50 years time is amazing sh$t. Of course, we were supposed to have flying cars by now, but we wont go there...:)


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## pardus (Jan 5, 2009)

7point62 said:


> Amazing what they can do with dead body parts. Medicine gets more like car repair everyday.



That's scary.

"Look I'm sorry lady but once we got inside to look at your heart we seen the heart was no good so we had to replace it and there's no point replacing that without replacing the lungs too. 
We gave your kidneys a flush while we were there and trimmed your stomach, it was getting a little loose, quite common with this model and year, we're out of livers at the moment or we'd have replaced that too, just so you know it'll need to be done sooner rather than later."

:doh:



WillBrink said:


> As am I. There will be some truly astounding breakthroughs in the next 10-20 years if things continue to progress as they should, political, funding, etc, notwithstanding. The next 30-50 years will take us in what would be science fiction to use now. Read "The Singularity Is Near" By Dr Ray Kurzwhile some time. He's been right far more often then wrong in his predictions, and what he predicts for 30-50 years time is amazing sh$t. Of course, we were supposed to have flying cars by now, but we wont go there...:)



My boss has invested in some new gene therapy technology that if it does what it's meant to do will virtually eliminate disease.
It identifies particular cells (e.g. cancer) and prevents them from replicating and/or destroys them IIRC  

I read an article a while back where they grew a heart, they got the structure from a cadaver them injected stem cells and hey presto a new heart for you, _your_ heart! :eek:   very fucking cool IMO! :cool:


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## AngelsSix (Jan 5, 2009)

Posted by Pardus:





> My boss has invested in some new gene therapy technology that if it does what it's meant to do will virtually eliminate disease.
> It identifies particular cells (e.g. cancer) and prevents them from replicating and/or destroys them IIRC



I think that anything that will actually work to start eliminating diseases and cancers will quickly be squashed by the pharmaceutical industry.  They are NOT going to lose money.:2c:


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## JBS (Jan 6, 2009)

Genes hold the key to almost everything related to disease.


With gene therapy, we'll be able to eventually make humans 10 feet tall, rippling with muscle, life-spans of 300 years, IQ's off the charts, better than 20/20 vision.

It sounds like science fiction, but stuff like this is 50 years away (or less), with some of it already being done in studies.

Some of the posters on this board will see astounding advancements in their lifetimes. 

Probably the first thing we'll see eradicated through gene therapy is Muscular Distrophy- which can now be cured through direct injections into the muscles.

There is another therapy being studied right now that can give a 95 year old man the muscular age of a 18 - 19 year old.  The idea is to eventually produce similar therapies for skin, ligaments, joints and tendons.  Wherever the treatment is injected it causes the tissue to regenerate.


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## JBS (Jan 11, 2009)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4282866/



> *Muscle strength doubled
> *Sweeney said that his laboratory studies show that injecting into muscles a manipulated virus that carries a gene for insulinlike growth factor 1, also known as IGF1, causes target muscles in rats to grow in size and strength by 15 to 30 percent. The inserted gene causes formation of extra IGF1 which, in turn, prompts the growth of muscle cells.When the technique was used on rats that were also put through an exercise program, the animals doubled their muscle strength, he said.
> 
> * “If a normal person would inject this, their muscles would get stronger without them doing anything,” said Sweeney. “If they are athletes in training, the rat study indicates that their training would be much more effective, injury would be overcome more easily and the effect of the training would last a much longer time.”*
> ...


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## x SF med (Jan 11, 2009)

Queens Cadet said:


> An old girlfriend of mine is having similar from a split patella. I'll have to ask her exactly wtf is the glue they used.


 
Believe it or not - Krazy Glue was probably used, it has been used for years to put bones together and instead of sutures once bleeding has stopped.


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## HoosierAnnie (Jan 11, 2009)

x SF med said:


> Believe it or not - Krazy Glue was probably used, it has been used for years to put bones together and instead of sutures once bleeding has stopped.



If I remember right KG  aka Super Glue  was developed as a surgical adhesive for (get this) brain surgery. Tried checking my memory on the web, but tonite google foo eludes me.


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## CPTAUSRET (Jan 12, 2009)

x SF med said:


> Believe it or not - Krazy Glue was probably used, it has been used for years to put bones together and instead of sutures once bleeding has stopped.



P:

Correct, Crazy Glue was invented by Dr Harry Coover for the purpose stated above.  

Nancy's maiden name is Coover, Harry is her uncle.


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## WillBrink (Jan 12, 2009)

JBS said:


> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4282866/



Funny, I was just writing this up on my blog. Also has some overlap and tie in to some comments about growth factors a while back:

http://www.shadowspear.com/vb/showthread.php?t=10110&highlight=growth+hormone

There's no doubt gene doping is the future of athletics (whether we like it/approve or not) with some amazing medical applications also.


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## JBS (Jan 12, 2009)

Personally, I don't understand the mentality that "it isn't natural, therefore we shouldn't use it".

Isn't that the whole point of science?  To advance knowledge in order to improve the quality and length of our lives?

If it were up to me, we- as a nation- would stop the TRILLION dollar giveaway in Wall Street, and cut it down to 1/3.  Instead of a trillion, give them 300 billion- but with the stipulation that it must be used ONLY for home loans and car loans.

That would solve the housing crisis and the car crisis.
Another 1/3 would go to medical and especially genetic research (preventive).  The hope would be that we'd cure a few diseases and make people immune to others, lightening the burden on our system.  We'd find a nice cheap island somewhere and funnel hundreds of thousands of volunteers and the best, brightest research talent over there in a concerted effort to unlock  many of the secrets that genes hold in them.

(The last 1/3 would go to armoring our military- not only vests but humvees, and other equipment that can save lives.)

*end tangent*


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