Abstract
Imagine with every step and every bend of the knee, you experience aching pain and as time passes, this pain only worsens. This pain is caused by Osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is the breakdown of articular cartilage, a tissue with unique mechanical properties between your bones to keep them from rubbing together. To prevent Osteoarthritis after certain articular cartilage injuries, a surgical procedure called Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation (ACI) may be performed. ACI works by growing healthy cartilage cells within a stiff flask in the lab to increase the number of cells and subsequently reimplant the cells in the targeted joint. However, ACI is imperfect, and healing is limited. This limited capacity for repair stems from growing cells in an artificial culture environment prior to implantation. We discuss how our research aims to address this issue by developing more effective methods to stimulate cartilage cells to produce better tissues outside the body.