Cartilage is found at the surface of joints and prevents friction between bones. This cartilage can degrade with age or trauma and can predispose patients to osteoarthritis. Cartilage has poor ability to regenerate itself due to poor blood flow and lack of mesenchymal stem cells. Current treatment options are limited, however the tissue engineering group at RCSI have recently developed a triple layered collagen-based scaffold for repair of bone and cartilage in an osteochondral defect, known as ChondroColl. This scaffold has shown success to date in animal models and thus had potential for use clinically. ChondroColl is currently designed as an off-the-shelf cell-free scaffold. However, for larger defects more complex solutions may be required in order to achieve repair. The team are thus begining to focus on a cell seeded ChondroColl scaffold. The optimal cell type for cell seeded ChondroColl has yet to be determined. The aim of this study is to combine a series of cells including cartilage cells and stem cells from bone marrow and fatty tissue within the knee joint to determine which cells will be best to use on the new scaffold for further studies. It will involve seeding cells onto the ChondroColl scaffold and evaluating results up to time points of 28 days. Analysis of the tissue produced in each group will enable to optimal cell combination to be identified.
