WOULD you and your lover like to exchange rings grown from each other鈥檚 bone?
Some will think it a romantic gesture, others will find it grisly. But one willing couple in the UK is about to get the chance, thanks to a government-funded project intended to promote awareness of the issues surrounding tissue engineering.
鈥淚t鈥檚 for people who want to give a bit of their body to each other,鈥� says Nikki Stott, a jewellery designer at the Royal College of Art in London. She and her colleague Tobie Kerridge are collaborating with Ian Thompson, a bioengineer at King鈥檚 College London.
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The tricky part is that the lucky couple will have to provide bone cell samples, for which the team will get ethical approval only if both people already need surgery. The most likely scenario is that both will need to have a wisdom tooth extracted.
During that procedure, an extra sliver of bone can be sliced from the jaw to yield bone cells. These cells will be grown on a ring-shaped scaffold structure, which will slowly dissolve as the cells colonise it.
The rough bone circles will then be given to the designers, who will consult with the couple and shape the bone into customised rings. Each partner will give the other the ring grown from their cells. 鈥淚 agree it is utterly bizarre,鈥� Thompson says.
One possibility is that the rings could be used as wedding bands. 鈥淭here is nothing in law that states what a wedding ring can or cannot be made of,鈥� says a spokesperson for the Office for National Statistics, the body that enforces the UK鈥檚 marriage guidelines.
Interested couples can apply through the website . The team says this is a one-off, and that it has no plans to start a commercial venture.
