Researchers have managed to grow new cartilage tissue from cows, which could help arthritis sufferers. Scientists are a step closer to a cure for arthritis after growing new cartilage tissue from cows.
When cartilage becomes damaged, it leads to the painful condition - leaving sufferers immobile and in pain. In extreme cases, nearly all cartilage in a joint can be worn away - causing a painful grinding together of bones. There is currently no cure for arthritis but now researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US have successfully grown cartilage tissue in the lab from cow joints. They hope they could create a treatment cure for arthritis by growing human cartilage in a similar way, effectively churning out patches for worn joints.
Their research was published in journal Scientific Reports.
Because replacement metal knee joints wear out eventually, a better solution would be to replace damaged cartilage.
Cartilage is particularly susceptible to wear as it does not have any blood vessels, so it has difficulty repairing itself.
The experiments in the US involved engineering replacement cartilage in the lab.
Researchers successfully produced tissue similar to tissue normally present in humans.
They hope that in the future these results may help create cartilage for repairing knee joints ravaged by arthritis.
The US researchers grew cartilage cells in thin tubes three to five hundredths of an inch in diameter made from an algae extract.
Once removed from the tubes, the cartilage strands were used for 3D printing. Squeezed through a specially designed nozzle, the strands can be laid down in rows in any desired pattern.
After about half an hour, the “printed” cartilage patch stuck together well enough to be moved to a lab dish.
Eventually the strands fully attached and fused together.
Dr Ozbolat said: “We can manufacture the strands in any length we want.
"Because there is no scaffolding, the process of printing the cartilage is scalable, so the patches can be made bigger as well.
“We can mimic real articular cartilage by printing strands vertically and then horizontally to mimic the natural architecture.”
Previous attempts at growing cartilage have embedded cells in a “scaffold” of hydrogel, a jelly-like plastic material. But Dr Ozbolat said: "Hydrogels dont allow cells to grow as normal. The Hydrogels confines the cells and doesn't allow them to communicate as they do in native tissues".
Degradation of the hydrogel can also produce toxic compounds that hinder cell growth, he pointed out.
The next stage will be to apply the same successful process to human cartilage.
Each patient treated would probably have to supply their own source material to avoid tissue rejection.
The source could be existing cartilage or stem cells transformed into cartilage cells.
Meanwhile, it emerged that transplant patients could soon receive new organs printed using 3D technology.
Experts have discovered how to use the revolutionary printers to create living human tissue.
And they believe the breakthrough will give doctors the power to create new organs to implant into patients.
Scientists at Bristol University invented a type of “bio-ink” made from stem cells which are the building blocks of human DNA.
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