Now Damaged knee joints can be repaired with cartilage grown from stem cells by using adult stem cells from bone marrow and skin as well as human embryonic stem cells.
Athanasiou and his group have already grown cartilage tissue in the lab. Now they are experimenting with various chemical and mechanical stimuli to improve its properties.
Cartilage is one of the very rare tissues that lack the ability to heal it self. When damaged by injury or osteoarthritis, the effects can be long-lasting and devastating.
“If I cut a tiny line on articular cartilage (the cartilage that covers the surfaces of bones at joints), it will never be erased,” “It’s like writing on the moon. If I go back to look at it a year later, it will look exactly the same.”
“This will be live, biological cartilage that will not only fill defects, but will potentially be able to resurface the entire surface of joints that have been destroyed by osteoarthritis,” Currently, joint replacements using metal and plastic prosthetics are the only recourse for the one in five adults who will suffer major joint damage from osteoarthritis.
But now with stem cell therapy treating the damaged knee joints is now no more