Abstract

Injuries to musculoskeletal tissues require the correct mechanical and biological conditions to allow healing to occur. Unfortunately, it is often the case that even with the correct factors being present, a regenerate tissue is not formed. A key aspect of tissue engineering is using added cells to enhance the body’s own natural healing response. In orthopaedics, a number of cell types have been used in the clinical setting, attempting to stimulate healing, expedite healing, or indeed improve the regenerative response. This presentation will focus mainly on two types of cell; the adult mesenchymal stem cell and the chondrocyte. The basic science behind these cell types will be explained using examples of clinical research to illustrate each. Finally, an insight will be given into our research aimed at treating cartilage injury with cell and scaffold combinations. This work is focused upon patient side ‘point of service’ cell therapy applications. Mr Alan Getgood – Co-Founder Alan is an Orthopaedic Registrar on the East Anglian Orthopaedic Training Rotation. He is currently taking time out of his rotation to do a 2 year MD investigating the use of a regionally specific collagen/glycosaminoglycan scaffold in articular cartilage tissue engineering. His clinical interests lie within sports injuries and the treatment of young arthritics, with particular focus on articular cartilage and meniscal regeneration.