What's in your eye? Is that a fibula?!?

Scientists have determined that a California women has bone fragments growing in her eye because her plastic surgeon used abdominal stem cells...

"Surgeons isolated mesenchymal stem cells from her abdominal fat—cells that can become bone, cartilage, and fat, among other types of tissue—before injecting them into the skin around her eyes."

Read the article and comment in several ways. Biology students can comment upon how this reflects differentiation as one of the characteristics of living things. AP Biology and anatomy students can reflect upon how the use of calcium hydroxylapatite might have affected the mesenchyme cells. Research and see if this causes an epigenetic change.

Stem cells to pituitary gland

Japanese scientists have grown an entire organ outside of the body. They grew a pituitary gland from embryonic stem cells. This is a first because scientists have had success creating tissues, but entire organs have been difficult up until now.

Some ideas for comments are: How could this be used for medical advances? Is this ethical to work on for humans? How does this relate to class work?