For the First Time, Scientists May Have Found a Way to Regenerate Cartilage

For decades, doctors believed cartilage loss was irreversible. A new injectable material developed at Northwestern proves otherwise.

BY VICTORIA SALVES, EDITORIAL FELLOW

You know what they say about cartilage: You don’t what you got till it’s gone. Okay I don’t know if anyone actually says that about cartilage. But for many years, doctors have thought that once cartilage wears down, it’s gone forever. That belief might be shifting.

Cartilage is the strong and flexible connective tissue that acts as a shock absorber throughout your body protecting your joints and bones. “Cartilage is a critical component in our joints,” says chemist and material scientist Samuel Stupp.

 “When cartilage becomes damaged or breaks down over time, it can have a great impact on people’s overall health and mobility,” Stupp adds. Damage to that cartilage can happen for a variety of reasons ranging from genetic conditions like osteoarthritis—which affects 32.5 million U.S. adults—to sports injuries or other traumas.

For many years, the medical community believed that there was no way to replace or regenerate cartilage. But now, a team at Northwestern University led by Stupp has designed an injectable material  that can both replace cartilage loss and help encourage new growth when injected at damaged sites.

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Despite the bioactive material appearing like rubbery goo, the material proved to be quite resilient following a test in sheep. According to researchers, testing in a sheep model was “vital” on various fronts. 

“Much like humans, sheep cartilage is stubborn and incredibly difficult to regenerate. Sheep stifles and human knees also have similarities in weight bearing, size and mechanical loads,” Northwestern Now wrote. 

The material, which is made of short protein fragments and a modified version of hyaluronic acid (yes, the popular ingredient found in skincare), behaved and appeared very similar to native cartilage. In fact, not only did new cartilage grow, the repaired tissue showed to be of higher quality compared to the control study. This success is a key indicator that the repair could work in humans. 

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