Conveners
S08a Biofabrication for cartilage regeneration and joint preservation
- Jos Malda (UMC Utrecht, NL)
- Nikita Norkin (EPFL)
Articular cartilage is a specialized hyaline cartilage that covers the epiphyseal surfaces of bones within synovial joints. It functions to reduce friction and distribute mechanical loads over the joint surface. Damage to the tissue leads to increased stress, inflammation, pain and progressive joint degeneration, potentially resulting in the development of osteoarthritis due to the tissue's...
Osteoarthritis is a progressive inflammatory disease characterized by articular cartilage (AC) degeneration, affecting millions globally. Recapitulating AC’s arcade-like collagen structure is key to engineering functional grafts. AC progenitor cells (ACPs) have a unique ability to maintain a stable hyaline phenotype. ACP derived microtissues can potentially be used as biological building...
Engineering functional, phenotypically stable articular cartilage remains one of the greatest challenges in tissue engineering. Modular tissue engineering strategies that utilize cellular aggregates, microtissues, or organoids as building blocks offer the potential to fabricate complex, hierarchical tissues at scale. However, a key challenge lies in achieving appropriate structural and zonal...
Introduction: The meniscus is essential for load distribution, shock absorption, and knee joint stability. Its function depends on the organization of collagen fibers in both radial and circumferential directions. Meniscus damage is often a precursor for degenerative conditions to the articular cartilage (AC). Treatment of meniscal tears is limited to the avascular areas[2]. Current artificial...
Introduction: Bottom-up tissue engineering strategies, particularly those inspired by developmental biology, hold the potential for creating biomimetic grafts capable of replicating natural tissue structures (1-2). In this work, we leverage the intrinsic ability of cellular aggregates, serving as tissue building blocks, to fuse for engineering biomimetic cartilage. We further develop a new...
Introduction: With a very low success rate of the currently available osteoarthritis (OA) treatment modalities, implanting a phenotypically stable cartilage graft is the only plausible strategy to mitigate cartilage lesions. However, poor understanding of the developmental biology leading to chondrocyte hypertrophy of the implanted construct rendered the attempts futile. The current study...
INTRODUCTION
Articular cartilage has limited regenerative potential and therefore does not restore upon damage. Biofabrication technologies offer promising strategies to engineer functional cartilage constructs to address also large defects [1]. Multicellular spheroids, or microtissues, are widely used as building blocks in these approaches to generate large volumes of cartilage-like matrix...
Regeneration of bone defects exceeding the critical size remains a challenge, as bone cells require proper oxygen tension. In contrast, chondrocytes are less susceptible to hypoxic conditions. Consequently, in recent years, many studies have focused on the development of biomaterials for bone regeneration through the endochondral ossification (EO) pathway. This route involves the formation of...
