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http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/...major-injuries
"To test their material, the team first tested their 3D-printed scaffold as a material to fuse spinal vertebrae in rats. Their goal was to see whether their material could lock two adjacent vertebrae in place as well as other scaffolds commonly used to treat spinal injury patients. Eight weeks after the Northwestern researchers implanted the hyperelastic bone, they found that new blood vessels had grown into their scaffold—a necessary step to keep bone-forming tissue alive—and calcified bone started to form from the rats’ existing stem cells. The combination fused the vertebrae more efficiently than the controls that received either a bone graft from a donor or nothing at all, the researchers report today in Science Translational Medicine."
"To test their material, the team first tested their 3D-printed scaffold as a material to fuse spinal vertebrae in rats. Their goal was to see whether their material could lock two adjacent vertebrae in place as well as other scaffolds commonly used to treat spinal injury patients. Eight weeks after the Northwestern researchers implanted the hyperelastic bone, they found that new blood vessels had grown into their scaffold—a necessary step to keep bone-forming tissue alive—and calcified bone started to form from the rats’ existing stem cells. The combination fused the vertebrae more efficiently than the controls that received either a bone graft from a donor or nothing at all, the researchers report today in Science Translational Medicine."