Cartilage healing with stem cells, magnets, and a bioreactor
Damage to joint cartilage from injury or osteoarthritis is challenging to repair because cartilage can’t repair itself. Joint cartilage doesn’t have blood vessels, so it isn’t regularly rejuvenated like other tissues, and there is no way for the body to transport new cells to an injury. Current treatments include microfracture, which breaks the bone under the injury to cause bleeding and presumably introduce new cells to start the healing process, and implanting autologous chondrocytes, also gathered by causing a secondary…