Arthritis is normally a disease of old age in humans. And it would be ideal to test the PLLA scaffolds in older animals, too. His lab would want to observe the animals treated for at least a year, probably two, to make sure the cartilage is durable. "This is a fascinating result, but we need to test this in a larger animal," one with a size and weight closer to a human, Nguyen says. The results are exciting, but Nguyen is cautious. Yang Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in Nguyen's group and the lead author of the published work. Our approach to healing cartilage is highly clinically translational, and we will look into the related healing mechanism," says Dr. Bone, cartilage, collagen, DNA and various proteins have a piezoelectric response. "Piezoelectricity is a phenomenon that also exists in the human body. The rabbit was allowed to hop on a treadmill to exercise after the scaffold was implanted, and just as predicted, the cartilage grew back normally. The team recently tested the scaffold in the knee of an injured rabbit. No outside growth factors or stem cells (which are potentially toxic or risk undesired adverse events) are necessary, and crucially, the cartilage that grows is mechanically robust. The regular movement of a joint, such as a person walking, can cause the PLLA scaffold to generate a weak but steady electrical field that encourages cells to colonize it and grow into cartilage. When it is squeezed, it produces a little burst of electrical current. The nanomaterial has a neat property called piezo-electricity. They designed a tissue scaffold made out of nanofibers of poly-L lactic acid (PLLA), a biodegradable polymer often used to stitch up surgical wounds. Nguyen's lab has also been working on cartilage regeneration, and they've discovered that electrical signals are key to normal growth. It breaks, under the normal stresses of the joint," says UConn bioengineer Thanh Nguyen. "The regrown cartilage doesn't behave like native cartilage. But neither of these approaches works, even in combination. Some researchers have tried amplifying chemical growth factors to induce the body to grow cartilage on its own other attempts rely on a bioengineered scaffold to give the body a template for the fresh tissue. The best possible treatment would be to regrow healthy cartilage in the damaged joint itself. If it's your own, transplanting it could injure the place it was taken from if it's from someone else, your immune system is likely to reject it. But healthy cartilage is in limited supply. The best treatments available try to replace the damaged cartilage with a healthy piece taken from elsewhere in the body or a donor. As cartilage deteriorates, bone begins to hit bone, and everyday activities like walking become terribly painful. Normally pads of cartilage cushion those spots. Arthritis is a common and painful disease caused by damage to our joints.
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