health
‘Science
Fiction’
Israel doctors
implant cells
to regrow gap
in shin bone.
Times of Israel
roundbreaking surgery to
regrow part of a human bone
was carried out last week at
HaEmek Hospital in the northern
Israeli town of Afula.
Danny, a resident of a nearby kib-
butz, who had part of his shinbone
removed eight months ago after a
car accident, was treated in the pro-
cedure, which was hailed by medical
staff as “science fiction.”
During the surgery, the first of its
kind in the world, doctors took fat
cells from the patient, grew them in
a lab and injected them back into his
body for them to generate the miss-
ing parts of the bone, Yediot Achronot
reported Dec. 20.
The procedure was developed sev-
eral years ago by Israeli biotechnology
company Bonus BioGroup. Fat cells
are separated from the cells capable
of generating tissue and blood ves-
sels, and the latter are grown in a
bioreactor, a device that simulates
the environment inside the human
body and provides optimal condition
for bone generation. After two weeks,
the process yields tissue that can be
transplanted in the patient’s body and
regrows the missing parts of the bone.
“We created thousands of tiny
bone particles, each one of them
alive, which enables us to inject them
into the missing part where they join
together to form a fully functional
bone,” said Dr. Shai Meretzky, CEO of
Bonus BioGroup.
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December 28 • 2017
jn
PUBLIC DOMAIN/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
HaEmek Medical Center Campus
The surgery was carried out by Prof.
Nimrod Rozen, h
ead of the orthopedic
ward at HaEmek.
“Our patient arrived with a miss-
ing part in his shinbone that his body
could not regenerate on its own,” he
told Yediot. “In the surgery, I trans-
planted the cells we extracted from
him two weeks ago and, within six
weeks, the bone will regrow itself and
his shin will function normally again.
This surgery is truly science fiction; it
changes the entire game in orthope-
dics. Today I have the ability to grow
any bone in a lab.”
According to Rozen, the new sur-
gery can also help elderly people who
suffer from osteoporosis and cancer
patients who had amputations. In the
future, he contends, it could even be
used to make people with dwarfism
dozens of centimeters taller.
“In every surgery, I can add 10 centi-
meters, and it can be repeated several
times,” he said. “This can change the
self-esteem of many people.”
Danny, who became the first person
in the world to undergo the innovative
procedure, said he trusts his doctors.
“I am sure they did a good job and
hope that in a few weeks I will be able
to stand normally on my foot again.”
In a procedure last month at the
same hospital, in what it said was
part of a clinical trial, semi-liquid
live human bone tissue, which had
been grown in a lab from a patient’s
fat cells, was transplanted into the
patient’s arm by injection. •