New University research is being developed to grow back bones — and it’s not magic from a fantasy novel.
Bone scaffolds, which provide a base for stem cells to produce new bone, currently cost thousands of dollars for a single gram, making them difficult and nearly impossible for average people to buy.
But James Hollier, biological engineering senior, is conducting research to create bone scaffolds that are cheaper but still compatible with the body.
To make the scaffolds, Hollier first makes a solution of organic materials, such as collagen or cellulose, and then freezes it vertically. The porous scaffold is created by this freeze-drying because the water in the solution is removed.
This is a preview of Research for Developing Cost Effective Bones going on.
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Micro-fabrication of Silk-based Scaffold Materials for Tissue Engineering: Formulation Design, Processing Control and Stem Cell Differentiation
Applications are invited for a Ph.D studentship in School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science (http://www.ceas.manchester.ac.uk/), and Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (http://www.mib.ac.uk/), University of Manchester.
Silk produced by the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, is readily available in large quantity and has a long history of use in medicine as sutures. The fibrous proteins exhibit unique mechanical and biological properties, including good biocompatibility, good oxygen and water vapour permeability, biodegradability, and minimal inflammatory reaction. Such distinctive properties, in combination with the possibility of genetic control to tailor sequence, provide an important set of material options for construction of biomaterial and scaffolds for tissue engineering. Recent experimental studies of engineering cartilage tissue using human mesenchymal stem cells (hMST) have demonstrated that silk-based scaffold materials are superior to collagen and synthetic polymer-based scaffold materials.
This is a preview of PhD IN TISSUE ENGINEERING IN UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER.
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