Development of novel bioresponsive photopolymerizable hydrogel scaffolds for chondrogenesis of monkey-derived stem cells

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Marcel Betsch
• Subject Area: Orthopaedics, Traumatology, Reconstructive Surgery
• Term: from 2011 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 209881431

The limited spontaneous repair of acute or chronic articular cartilage injury is well documented and appears to result from alterations in the structural support for chondrocytes, the avascular nature of cartilage and subsequent lack of physiologic inflammatory response to injury. The goals of therapeutic interventions are to meet these biologic challenges by improving cell recruitment and repair capacity. In this application we seek to develop novel bioresponsive photopolymerizable hydrogel scaffolds that will adapt to chondrogenesis of different stem cell types. Therefore we evaluate the hypothesis that implants with degradation kinetics linked to cellular differentiation and matrix elaboration will facilitate the production of a regenerative cartilaginous tissue. In addition the availability of these adaptable scaffolds provides the means to tailor them for different stem cell types. We have selected four cell types that are representative of the range of potentially therapeutic candidate cell types: articular cartilage chondrocytes, bone marrow-derived stem cells, somatic cell nuclear transfer-derived embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. All of these cell types are derived from the rhesus macaque which offers us the ability to perform and test the stem cell loaded scaffolds in in vivo experiments in a clinically relevant animal model.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Brian Johnstone, Ph.D.