New treatment on the horizon for osteoporosis simply by vibrating stem cells, says study

Researchers at the University of West Scotland and the University of Glasgow say they have discovered they can grow new bone simply by vibrating stem cells, offering hope for new treatments for osteoporosis or broken bones in the future.

The scientists say that they have discovered that stem cells can be coaxed into turning into bone cells – known as osteoblasts – using low frequency vibrations in the lab, a technique dubbed ‘nanokicking’.

It is thought that stem cells are the future of medicine because they can become any cell in the body depending on their environment.

The scientists believe that the 1000Hz frequency mimics conditions experienced by natural bone in the body and induces stem cells to turn into bone in around 28 days, which can then be implanted.

They hope that the same frequency could be used to encourage healing from within the body without the need for a transplant. Current treatment for complicated breaks is painful surgery where doctors remove bone from a healthy part of a patient’s body and transplant it in the damaged site.

For this new process, stem cells are ‘jiggled’ in a petri dish on a specifically built vibrating platform called a bioreactor which uses the same technology that astrophysicists use to hunt for gravitational waves – the distortions in space time which occur when black holes collide.

The team aims to test their lab-grown bone in people within 3 years and that therapy could be available in 10 years.

Further down the line they hope it will be possible to ‘nanokick’ patients directly to heal fractures without surgery.

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