Rings of bone grown for couples
From BBC NEWS Science/Nature:
Each couple, selected from 180 volunteers across the UK, will have their wisdom teeth extracted at Guy's Hospital in London.
The eventual product will be a specially designed pair of rings made from a combination of traditional precious metals and the bone tissue of either partner.
...
Often there are bits of bone left in the gap where a wisdom tooth attached itself to the jawbone. These segments are rich in osteoblasts - the cells which are responsible for forming bones.
'Basically, the material is a baked glass ceramic composite. It goes through a couple of processes and ends up as porous bioactive material which mimics the structure of bone,' said Mr Kerridge.
'We seed it with osteoblast, which are the bone cells. They grow into the structure and the material then becomes replaced with bone material.'
Each couple, selected from 180 volunteers across the UK, will have their wisdom teeth extracted at Guy's Hospital in London.
The eventual product will be a specially designed pair of rings made from a combination of traditional precious metals and the bone tissue of either partner.
...
Often there are bits of bone left in the gap where a wisdom tooth attached itself to the jawbone. These segments are rich in osteoblasts - the cells which are responsible for forming bones.
'Basically, the material is a baked glass ceramic composite. It goes through a couple of processes and ends up as porous bioactive material which mimics the structure of bone,' said Mr Kerridge.
'We seed it with osteoblast, which are the bone cells. They grow into the structure and the material then becomes replaced with bone material.'
posted by LexMonkey at 6/14/2005 03:55:00 PM ||
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