• Question: How do you regenerate bones?

    Asked by bella to Fiona on 23 Feb 2018.
    • Photo: Fiona Freeman

      Fiona Freeman answered on 23 Feb 2018:

      Hi Bella,

      Great question! When you break your bone signals are given out from the damaged bone to tell cells within your body to come to the damage site. These cells are called stem cells. These stem cells can change and become different tissue like bone or fat or cartilage. Sometimes when the break is too big these signals can get lost and the bone does not know to heal itself. That is where I come in. What we do is take these stem cells from the patient and by exposing them to different signals make them become bone in the lab. We can then implant this tissue back into the body to aid in the healing process.

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