FDA approves first nanotech medical device
This is natural bone scaffold. Some scientists are predicting that synthetic bone will be routinely used in human patients starting in late 2006.
DB: This is Earth and Sky. If you break a bone, there’s a good chance your body can heal itself.
JB: But the process is slow. And damaged bones are vulnerable to refracturing. Your doctor might implant metal screws or pins. Then there’s a risk of inflammation, and bone doesn’t grow back as strongly around metal as around other bone. Scientists have looked for materials that are both strong and “biocompatible” – in other words, acceptable to the body.
DB: The key would be to create crystals of a synthetic material the same size and shape as those in real bone – about 50 nanometers wide – in other words, extremely small. Now, with nanotechnology – the science of the very small – that’s become possible. Ed Ahn is chief technology officer and founder of Angstrom Medica.
Ed Ahn: It turns out that for you to get a beneficial, very vital bioactive response from the bone you’re implanting into, not only does it have to be the same composition as bone . . . but it really has to look and feel like bone . . . because that material is interacting with living tissue, the cells. And the cells can taste, see, touch, and feel.
JB: Ahn’s new material – called NanOss – is as strong as steel. It acts as a kind of scaffold that the living bone can grow into and replace. Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it as the first nanotechnology–based medical device. And that’s our show. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
The image at left shows nano–engineered bone implants.
For a good overview of how NanOss was developed and how it received FDA approval, read this article from Angstrom Medica.
Ahn predicts that his synthetic bone will be routinely used in human patients starting in late 2006.
Our thanks to:
Ed Ahn
Angstrom Medica, Inc.
Woburn, MA
