BMJ 2008;336:526 (8 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39511.502789.DB
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Building people’s faces from stem cells may be possible in two decades
Caroline White
1 London
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The ability to wholly engineer faces from stem cells looks highly likely within the next 20 years, experts claimed this week.
Francis Hughes, professor of periodontology at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, said that it was already possible to engineer specific tissues.
But the face is a complex entity, he said, and putting together all the different tissues required through engineering of stem cells was still a "major challenge."
"Cells all talk to each other," Professor Hughes said, "and there’s a lot more we need to know [about this]."
Professor Hughes was one of several specialists discussing the practical, psychological, and ethical issues of tissue engineering at a public debate organised by the Facial Surgery Research Foundation in London.
Other challenges also remained, he contended. "The traditional barriers between material scientists and cell biologists would need to be broken down." And the use of stem cells
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