The Telegraph has reported that scientists have succeeded in growing human bone from stem cells in a laboratory, which they claim may eventually pave the way for patients to have broken bones repaired or replaced with new ones grown outside the body.

The researchers started with stem cells taken from fat tissue. It took around a month to grow them into sections of fully-formed living human bone up to a couple of inches long.  The technology, which has been developed along with researchers at the Technion Institute of Research in Israel, uses three dimensional scans of the damaged bone to build a gel-like scaffold that matches the shape.

The first trial in patients is on course to be conducted later this year, by an Israeli biotechnology company Bonus BioGroup that has been working with academics on the technology.

Professor Avinoam Kadouri, head of the scientific advisory board for Bonus BioGroup, said: “There is a need for artificial bones for injuries and in operations…..We use three dimensional structures to fabricate the bone in the right shape and geometry. We can grow these bones outside the body and then transplant it to the patient at the right time”

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