Stegemann's lab envisions something they lightheartedly call "bone spackle," which would use cells from other people and provide a ready-to-use, off-the-shelf bone-filling product primed to regenerate bone inside any body. (Credit: Robert Coelius/Michigan Engineering)
To heal big bone wounds, we could one day inject ‘spackle’
Researchers aim to treat complex bone wounds with what they lightheartedly call an injectable "spackle" full of stem cells.
A cell-based therapy can drastically accelerate the bone regeneration process after injury, research with mice shows.
Large, complex bone wounds are hard for doctors and patients alike to contend with. They often require grafts and multiple surgeries.
Jan Stegemann, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, is reprogramming adult cells from bone marrow so that they can be injected directly into a wound and grow into bone. The marrow-derived cells are known as progenitor cells, a type of adult stem cell that maintains the ability to differentiate into several different cell types.
Stegemann’s team’s latest work appears in the journal Biomaterials. He explains their approach here:
The post To heal big bone wounds, we could one day inject ‘spackle’ appeared first on Futurity.
Share this article:
This article uses material from the Futurity article, and is licenced under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Related Articles:
Marrow cells switch jobs to repair injured bones
Jan. 31, 2020 • futurity