INSTEAD of silicone implants or tissue taken from elsewhere in the patient’s body, plastic surgeons might soon be using tissue grown from patients’ own stem cells.
So claims Jeremy Mao of the University of Illinois, who has tested the idea in mice. He seeded scaffolds with human bone-marrow-derived stem cells and inserted them into mice.
Four weeks later the implants still retained their size and shape. When tissue from a patient’s body is used for reconstruction, the implants often deform after just a week, and can halve in volume over later years. “It seems promising and could soon be making…
