The Israeli biotech startup Bonus Biogroup has successfully grown human bones from fat extracted via liposuction, transplating the material back into the patient.

Bonus presented its research at the International Conference on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Spain earlier this week.  The company says its material is grown in a lab from each patient's own fat cells.  The researchers then injected it into voids of the patient's problematic jaw.  Over a few months it hardened and merged with the existing bone to complete the jaw.

"For the first time worldwide, reconstruction of deficient or damaged bone tissue is achievable by growing viable human bone graft in a laboratory, and transplanting it back to the patient in a minimally invasive surgery via injection," said Bonus Chief Executive Shai Meretzki. 

The transplants were "100 percent successful in all 11 patients" of a small test group, according to company vice president Ora Burger.  She added, "Now we are going to conduct a clinical study in the extremities, long bones."