'Artificial Bone' Generated from Umbilical Cord Stem Cells

Artificial bones can be generated from a new biomaterial derived from umbilical cord stem cells, according to researchers in Spain who recently patented the bone-generating biomaterial.

While the researchers have yet to grow artificial bones in a fully living organism, they report the laboratory results in "ex-vivo" trials are promising. The next step will be implanting the technology in a living animal, perhaps a rat or a rabbit, to see if the biomaterial can successfully regenerate bone in them.

A team of scientists from the University of Grenada, the Spanish National Research Council Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine and the University of Jaén contributed to the research.

Artificial bone -- or at least the biomaterial that generates is -- could be used to help manufacture medicines designed to improve treatments of repair bone or osteochondrial, tumor or traumatic lesions, and to replace lost cartilage in limbs, the researchers report.

If successful, the biomaterial could one day be surgically implanted into pathologically frail areas to promote local bone growth.

"Precedents exist in the development of materials that fulfill the basic function of stimulating cell differentiation but a biologically complex material similar to bone tissue has never before been produced 'ex vivo'," the researchers wrote in a statement.

"No alternative materials are currently available on the market, nor have any been described in the literature."