You never know just where it is going to come from. It turns out
that fish scale collagen promotes bone replacement at twice the
speed of the material currently used. It is also thankfully much
stronger also.
Bone restoration protocols were unsatisfactory because of the slow
progress and the weakness issue. This addresses both those issues
and suddenly we are anticipating a repaired structure even stronger
than the lost materiel. This is good news that will find its way
into the mainstream rather quickly.
There is obviously a great deal of research going into the problem of
bone and tissue restoration because of success like this. A lot is
already been applied and it is certain that the next several years
will see much of all this flow into daily practice.
Outside of brain damage recovery, just about everything else is
submitting major progress and outright solution. I will include
cancer in that list although my patience is tried when I see bullet
proof protocols apparently been ignored. Of course, that is not true
at all. It merely means that the weight of time wears heavily on
natural progress. One does have to wait for the next press release.
Producing
Artificial Bones from Fish Scales
ScienceDaily (June 1,
2012) — Tokyo Tech's Toshiyuki Ikoma and Junzo Tanaka have
developed technology for producing artificial bones from fish scales
and apatite.
Toshiyuki Ikoma and
Junzo Tanaka have developed technology for producing artificial bones
from fish scales and apatite. "Our technology enables the
formation of new bone tissues within three months," says Ikoma.
"This is much faster than the six months required using collagen
from porcine dermis." The use of fish collagen also mitigates
the potential infection of humans with viruses from pigs. "This
new material is very safe," emphasizes Ikoma.
Other features of
artificial bones fabricated by fish collagen and apatite include the
finding that:
(1) the bones have a
much higher density and are thereby very strong;
(2) the bones
implanted into bone defects transform into bone tissue much faster
than those using porcine dermis collagen.
"One of our major
aims is to use fish collagen for the treatment of bone tumors in
older people whose bones take longer to regenerate," explains
Ikoma. "Fish collagen is a material that has the potential of
becoming the key material for the development of artificial bones and
bone therapy.
In addition to the
regeneration of bones from fish collagen, the Tanaka and Ikoma
Research group is pursuing projects on nanomedicine and diagnostics.
Notably, the Tokyo Institute of Technology group conducts research on
tissue engineering and implantable biomaterials in collaboration with
medical doctors and biologists. "An interdisciplinary approach
with researchers from the medical and engineering fields is very
crucial for success" says Ikoma.
In the fish collagen
experiments, the researchers have focused on type I collagen
extracted from tilapia scales because the scale has little fat and is
mainly composed of pure collagen. Intriguingly, Tilapia lives in warm
fresh water and the scale collagen shows the highest denaturation
(the change of collagen to gelatin) temperature at 36oC, and has no
fishy odor.
The Tokyo Tech group
has transferred the extraction technology of collagen from tilapia
scale to a company. "Interestingly, the structure of collagen
fibrils in fish scale is very similar to that of human corneal
stroma," says Ikoma. "So the investigation of fish
scale will be useful for the reconstruction of corneal stroma."
The unique
characteristics of fish collagen show potential for the production of
cosmetics. "We have already produced cosmetics including the
fish collagen," says Ikoma. "Next, we would like to produce
the other products such as cell culture substrates, scaffolds for
tissue engineering, and implantable biomaterials."
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