For children born with cleft lip and palate, the wait for a repaired jawbone can stretch a decade or more. But a team at the University of Sydney has built something that could change that timeline forever: a biodegradable "nanobone" that teaches the body to grow its own bone, no painful graft required.
The problem is stubborn and old. When parts of the upper lip or roof of the mouth don't fully fuse during pregnancy, gaps remain in the jawbone. Repairing them is one of the most complex stages of treatment, and kids often live with difficulties for years — trouble breathing, eating, and speaking, plus a toll on confidence and social life that can be heartbreaking. Many wait until they are 10 to 12 years old before surgeons take bone from another part of the child's own body and graft it into the gap. That procedure has changed little in more than 50 years.
The new material, a calcium-aluminosilicate nanomaterial, works differently. Instead of shipping in manufactured growth factors, it wakes up a naturally occurring one already hiding inside us — latent Transforming Growth Factor β1, or TGF-β1. Once activated, this signal attracts bone-forming stem cells to the injury site and nudges them to become bone-producing cells. Over time, the material is replaced by the body's own tissue. It even promotes blood clotting within about 30 seconds, helping stabilize the wound in the earliest moments of healing.
The numbers are striking. In a preclinical bone model, the material grew roughly 80% more new bone than a control after eight weeks, and it activated a key bone-repair growth factor at about 10 times the level achieved with conventional methods. Lead researcher Associate Professor Chun Xu, a Sydney Horizon Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, described it simply: "The material activates dormant repair signals in the body, triggering a cascade of healing processes that attract bone-forming stem cells and stimulate new bone growth."
Published in the journal ACS Nano, the work came from the University of Sydney School of Dentistry, Charles Perkins Centre, and Sydney Nano, alongside the University of Queensland. It marks the first time a single nanomaterial platform has combined rapid blood clotting, activation of the body's own growth factors, stem-cell recruitment, and enhanced bone regeneration.
Cleft lip and palate affects about 1 in 700 children worldwide, and more than 4 million bone repair procedures are performed every year. The team's long-term dream is to treat kids much earlier — before the years of waiting. Beyond cleft repair, the technology could one day help with traumatic injuries, tooth loss, and other tough bone defects. Xu's group is also exploring weaving the material into personalized 3D-printed scaffolds matched to each patient's unique defect. "Instead of supplying external growth factors," Xu said, "we're encouraging the body to use its own healing potential."