NIH Grant for Functional Cartilage Tissue Engineering
08/31/2009
Professor Hung has received a 4-year, $2.34 million NIH grant aimed at applying physiologic loading bioreactors for growing engineered cartilage with functional mechanical properties in the laboratory, for implantation in regions of damaged cartilage in joints such as the knee or hip. This work is a continuation of 8 years of NIH-funded research in this area.
Articular cartilage is the connective tissue that lines our mobile joints (such as the knee and hip) and serves cushioning and lubrication functions. The cells that comprise articular cartilage, or chondrocytes, live in an environment that is dominated by mechanical influences arising from tissue deformation during joint-loading activities (e.g., running, walking and jumping).
Functional engineered cartilage may provide new strategies for treating osteoarthritis (OA), the most common form of arthritis that afflicts 20 million Americans and costs $128 billion annually in direct medical and work losses in the U.S. Co-Investigators include Professor Gerard Ateshian (ME/BME) and Dr. James Cook (Comparative Orthopaedics Laboratory, University of Missouri at Columbia).