On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Cadaver bones can replace injured or diseased bone, but up to a third of these grafts fail because they cannot repair microscopic cracks from normal wear and tear, unlike living bone. Resurrecting dead bones could give patients an option to amputation. Molecular immunologist Edward Schwarz of the University of Rochester and his colleagues compared mice that had healthy and dead bone implants and found that living bone significantly expresses two genes involved in blood vessel growth and old bone reabsorption. The researchers incorporated these genes into a freeze-dried virus, which they coated onto dead femur bone grafts. The genes induced the body to supply blood to the dead bone, thereby revitalizing it. New bone formation did not occur uniformly on graft surfaces, but the team found other genes that might improve the approach's efficacy. The full discussion appears in the March Nature Medicine.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
