You’re Using Crustaceans For WHAT?

We here in the Crabitat are not sure whether to be proud or angry. Doctors have come up with a new technique to grow replacement human bone lost through accident or surgery. The process uses seaweed and  a biopolymer extracted from (gasp) crustacean shells along with a few other things.

Now Xu and his colleagues have developed a better way to bridge bone breaches. In this system bone cells grow from inside the scaffold, producing a structure that is more consistently solid and that eventually morphs into natural bone.

This system combines a cement that is made of calcium phosphate, a mineral found in bone, along with a commercial mesh that gradually dissolves in the body. Surgeons can either form the cement or inject it straight into the gap. The biodegradable mesh reinforces the cement so that it is strong enough to survive until natural-bone reinforcements arrive.

Adding chitosan, a biopolymer that is extracted from crustacean shells, makes the structure even stronger.

So that bone cells aren't excluded from the scaffold's inner reaches, cells are mixed right into the cement. And so the body doesn't reject these cells, the patient's own bone cells are added. These cells are cultured in a laboratory from samples drawn from the patient. Culturing enough cells takes a week or two.

They coat the cultured bone cells with a seaweed extract to protect them while the cement sets. The technique is still under development but shows great promise to overcome shortcomings in current methods.

Oh, okay, we're proud. Just keep your hands off Preston.