Grant: Proof of Principle Program - Phase I

Currently there is no optimal treatment for degenerated articular cartilage. Although rarely life-threatening, approximately 1 in 10 Canadians suffer from cartilage degeneration representing a substantial burden to the Canadian healthcare system. While resurfacing damaged joint cartilage with engineered tissue formed in vitro is a promising new approach, it has not been realized commercially. Only a limited amount of cells can be reasonably extracted from a single individual thus making it very challenging to produce enough phenotypically-stable tissue to repair clinically-relevant sized defects. To address this shortcoming, we have recently developed a novel approach to create phenotypically-stable, large-sized tissue engineered cartilage constructs directly from a cartilage biopsy, or an equivalent number of isolated cells, without the use of a cell expansion phase or a scaffold. The tissue or cell samples are cultivated in a bioreactor optimized for cartilage cell culture which elicits the extensive growth of new cartilaginous tissue that conforms to the size/shape of the reactor vessel.