Abstract:

Osteoarthritis (OA) as one of the most prevalent joint disease, affects 25 million individuals globally with an estimated 10% of men and 18% of women over the age of 60. Existing therapeutic methods remain to be inadequate and revolves around weight management, symptom-relieving and pain management. Surgical intervention such as total knee replacement also presents undesirable outcomes such as failed prosthesis and the possibility of a second revision. The ever-changing field of tissue engineering may provide solutions towards new disease-modifying therapies that could repair damaged cartilage. Our laboratory has developed several platform technologies including extracellular matrix microencapsulation for osteochondral tissue engineering applications. In this talk, I will display my recent results and discuss with you the possibility of utilising Infrapatellar fat-pad (IFP) derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as a better alternative autologous cell source for chondrogenic and osteogenic differentiation, the capability of using IFP-derived MSCs to engineer osteochondral constructs to recapitulate the native joint tissue. I will also explain my plan to investigate the efficacy of such construct in a post-traumatic OA rabbit model via anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT).