New Bandage Uses Stem Cells To Speed Up Healing Of Broken Bones
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - British researchers say they've found a new way to heal broken bones.
It's a type of bandage that uses stem cells to speed up the healing process.
As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez reports, scientists at a lab in England are working to revolutionize how bones heal.
"There was a lot of trial and error, a lot of testing," one said.
The team at King's College London created a futuristic bandage made from a new biomaterial that heals broken bones when implanted onto the site of the fracture.
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"We can apply them on the really large bone fracture and we see that they promote bone repair," said Shukry Habib.
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 certain bone cells grown from a patients own stem cells.
"Human bone forming stem cells. We culture them on the bandage, and we engineer a 3D tissue within one week," Habib said.
Scientists hope to expand the technology to treat more than just broken bones. They're 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 repair of that tissue," Habib said.
The bandage is designed to be absorbed by the body once the bone has healed. The treatment has already been tested successfully on mice, and scientists are now pushing for a clinical trial on people.
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