Dramatic advances in the fields of biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, genetics, biomedical engineering and materials science have given rise to the remarkable new cross-disciplinary field of tissue engineering. Tissue engineering uses synthetic or naturally derived, engineered biomaterials to replace damaged or defective tissues, such as bone, skin, and even organs.
In a small study, researchers reported increased healthy tissue growth after surgical repair of damaged cartilage if they put a “hydrogel” scaffolding into the wound to support and nourish the healing process. The squishy hydrogel material was implanted in 15 patients during standard microfracture surgery, in which tiny holes are punched in a bone near the injured cartilage. The holes stimulate patients’ own specialized stem cells to emerge from bone marrow and grow new cartilage atop the bone.
Bionic devices are implants which replace biological functions which have been lost due to nerve damage. They use electrical signals to stimulate the remaining nerve cells following disease or injury. Although the term bionic was only coined in the late 1950s, the earliest bionic devices were cardiac pacemakers, developed in the early 1900s. However the first commercial implantable units were not available until the 1950s.
More than half of traumatic spinal cord injuries (SCI) in humans are cervical lesions, resulting in chronic loss of limb function. A better understanding of the link between the neurologic damage caused by SCI, spontaneous motor function recovery, and long-term motor deficits would lead to better therapeutic approaches, as discussed in an article in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The
Penetrating soft tissue injuries that may be caused by bullet wounds or motor vehicle accidents, or exposure to explosive devices in military settings, can cause muscle loss resulting in functional disability and cosmetic deformity. Efforts underway to develop tissue engineering solutions to repair and replace damaged and lost muscle will benefit greatly from the availability of robust animal models to test these innovative therapeutic strategies.
Soft Tissue Regeneration, an early stage orthopedic device company that has developed a breakthrough tissue engineering platform used to regenerate ligaments and tendons, announced today that it has received FDA clearance to market its STR GRAFT, a biodegradable scaffold used for soft tissue augmentation and rotator cuff repair.
Regenerative medicine is a new, exciting field that is based upon the belief that the human body has the inherent power to heal itself, but in some instances it just needs a little help.
The ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) 2013 2nd Global Congress on Nano-engineering for Medicine and Biology (NEMB 2013) will be held Feb. 4-6, 2013, at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston, Mass.
A painstaking effort to create a biocompatible patch to heal infant hearts is paying off at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital.
Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) can develop into bone cells and are useful for tissue engineering and regeneration. However, when grown in the laboratory they quickly lose their ability to continue dividing and they die.
Today UBM Canon announces the expansion of its educational events aimed at the medical technology sector, with new 'Innovation' seminars being held this February, 2013. The seminars, named MedTech Innovate Seminars, will run concurrently with the MD&M West Conference and Exhibition, one of the largest medical design and manufacturing events in the world.
Dr Sanjay Kumar, MD, PhD has been named the winner of the Young Investigator Award by the journal STEM CELLS for leading research into the microenvironmental regulation of neural stem cells. The $10,000 prize is awarded annually to a young scientist whose paper has been judged to be of worldwide significance by a global jury.
The only way to protect against HIV and unintended pregnancy today is the condom. It's an effective technology, but not appropriate or popular in all situations.
Tufts University School of Engineering researchers have demonstrated silk-based implantable optics that offer significant improvement in tissue imaging while simultaneously enabling photo thermal therapy, administering drugs and monitoring drug delivery. The devices also lend themselves to a variety of other biomedical functions.
Liver disease is a very broad family of diseases. There are two main categories of liver disease:
A study published today in BioMed Central's open access journal Skeletal Muscle reports of a new therapeutic technique to repair and rebuild muscle for sufferers of degenerative muscle disorders. The therapy brings together two existing techniques for muscle repair - cell transplantation and tissue engineering - specifically, mesoangioblast stem cells delivered via a hydrogel cell-carrier matrix.
A study published this month by researchers at the University of Toronto and Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital has shown that cells derived from the umbilical cord, "Human Umbilical Cord PeriVascular Cells" (HUCPVCs), are more effective in restoring heart function after an acute myocardial infarction (in common parlance, a heart attack) in a pre-clinical model than a similar cell population derived from bone marrow.
Gels that can be injected into the body, carrying drugs or cells that regenerate damaged tissue, hold promise for treating many types of disease, including cancer. However, these injectable gels don't always maintain their solid structure once inside the body.
Smart scaffolding that can guide cells, proteins and small-molecule drugs to make new tissue and repair damage inside the body is in the works at Rice University.
As they develop, vertebrate embryos form vertebrae in a sequential, time-controlled way. Scientists have determined previously that this process of body segmentation is controlled by a kind of "clock," regulated by the oscillating activity of certain genes within embryonic cells. But questions remain about how precisely this timing system works.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) can disrupt the body's sensitive signaling mechanisms that control blood pressure, breathing, and oxygen delivery to the heart and other organs during changes in body position. Cardiovascular (CV) disease is a leading cause of illness and death following SCI, and changes in baroreflex sensitivity-the body's ability to detect and respond to changes in blood pressure-may be predictive of a CV event.
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