Regenerative Medicine for Orthopaedic Injuries
Orthopaedic injuries can compromise mobility and hinder quality of life, and not just for professional athletes.
At the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, we've been studying the forces on bones and joints for a long time.
We’ve been working on:
- Better ways to help heal orthopaedic injuries
- Better artificial joints
- Replacement tissue for cartilage and ligaments
Much of what we've learned has already improved surgical and rehabilitation techniques for orthopaedic injuries.
One of the first regenerative medicine treatments to become a commercial product, a scaffold called SIS that promotes the regrowth of tissue, is widely used to help regenerate shoulder rotator cuffs and knee ligaments.
Arthritis: Working on New Treatments Using Stem Cells
Cartilage is a human tissue that doesn't regenerate on its own.
At the McGowan Institute, we're looking to change that and help the more than 40 million Americans suffering from osteoarthritis — a painful degradation of the cartilage in the linings of joints.
Not long from now, we'll have a new treatment in clinical research studies that takes a patient's own stem cells from a small muscle biopsy and uses a growth factor that encourages the development of cartilage. The cells will be injected into arthritic joints to renew the cartilage layer without fear of the patient’s immune system rejecting them.