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Scientists use stem cells to grow cartilage

Scientists from Imperial College London have successfully converted human embryonic stem cells into cartilage cells, offering encouragement that replacement cartilage could one day be grown for transplantation. Research to be published in Tissue Engineering shows how the Im...

Stem cells from muscles can repair cartilage

Damage to articular cartilage (cartilage covering the ends of bones where they meet in a joint) frequently occurs due to injury or illness, and can lead to degenerative disease. Treatments and experimental approaches to repair this articular cartilage have achieved limited results, but currently there is no method to fully restore this type of injured cartilage. Tissue engineering involving the d...

Bone and cartilage growth to blame for heart valve disease

Research to be published in the April 18 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology provides the first explanation of an active rather than passive process that leads to heart valve degeneration, furthering a Northwestern researcher's effort to lead a paradigm shift in the medical community's beliefs about the cause of valve disease. Heart valve disease is caused not by a '...

Bioengineered tissue implants regenerate damaged knee cartilage

Knee cartilage injuries can be effectively repaired by tissue engineering and osteoarthritis does not stop the regeneration process concludes research led by scientists at the University of Bristol. The study, "Maturation of tissue engineered cartilage implanted in injured and osteoarthritic human knees", published in the July 2006 (Volume 12, Number 7) issue of Tissue Engineering, demonst...

Signaling for cartilage

Skeletal progenitor cells differentiate into cartilage cells when one master gene actually suppresses the action of another, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appears online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Skeletons are made of bone and cartilage cells that are differentiated from the same multipotent stem cell, said Dr. Brendan Le...

Cartilage discovery offers arthritis hope

Scientists have revealed the intricate structure of cartilage in what they hope will provide clues to how the crippling joint disease osteoarthritis might one day be treated. The disease, which affects more than five million people in the UK, is caused by the wear and tear of the smooth, hard cartilage tissue that covers the ends of bones allowing them to glide over one another at the join...

Woven scaffolds could improve cartilage repair

Using a unique weaving machine of their design, Duke University Medical Center researchers have created a three-dimensional fabric "scaffold" that could greatly improve the ability of physicians to repair damaged joints with the patient's own stem cells. "If further experiments are successful, the scaffold could be used in clinical trials within three or four years," said Franklin Moutos,...

Tissue engineered scaffolding allows reproduction of cartilage tissue

A new study examines the use of tissue-engineered scaffolding made of cartilage cells, which have a limited ability to heal naturally, to replace defective cartilage tissue. Cartilage cells are extracted and seeded to the scaffold which is implanted into the body, where new cartilage tissue is grown along the structure. The study appears in the journal Artificial Organs. The procedure was...