Arthritis

The Houston Chronicle is running an article on the tissue engineering of new cartilage as a brute force therapy for the age-related damage of arthritis: "I have been researching this area of cartilage since 1984, and this is the most excited I have ever been about the work ... Athanasiou's group describes the first successful method of growing and molding cartilage into natural forms without requiring scaffolds, trellis-like arrangements upon which cells are seeded and grown. ... Using nothing but cartilage donor cells, Athanasiou's group grew dime-sized disks of cartilage nearly identical to that in the body. ... We're no longer talking about repairing a small lesion. Potentially, we're talking about effectively treating osteoarthritis by resurfacing the entire joint. I'm not saying we're there yet, but we're beginning to see that it's doable."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/health/3747377.html
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