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New sutures may see human trials in five years

One of the medical breakthroughs with the greatest promise is stem cells. Stem cell research is frowned on by many because it is most often associated with stem cells from aborted fetuses.

However, great strides in stem cell research using stem cells for the patient's own body are being made. The new stem cell research takes stem cells from the patient and uses them for all sorts of procedures including breast augmentation.

Biomedical engineering students from Johns Hopkins have demonstrated a way to use stem cells from a patient to help repair serious orthopedic injuries such as ruptured tendons. The students demonstrated a method of embedding the patient's own stem cells into a surgical thread that the surgeon uses to repair torn tendons.

The new process doesn't change or impact the way that surgeons repair the injury. Currently the new process is undergoing animal trials and will hopefully make it to human trials in about five years. The new process has great promise for speeding healing from serious injuries.

Matt Rubashkin, the student team leader said, "Using sutures that carry stems cells to the injury site would not change the way surgeons repair the injury. But we believe the stem cells will significantly speed up and improve the healing process. And because the stem cells will come from the patient, there should be no rejection problems."

The project team included ten undergraduates and was sponsored by a company called Bioactive Surgical Inc. and the team won first place in the Design Day 2009 competition conducted by the university's Department of Biomedical engineering.

The team located a machine that could weave a surgical thread in a way that would ensure the most effective delivery of stem cells. The stem cells are harvested from the hip of the patient while they are under anesthesia.

The students developed the process for the design competition, but orthopedic surgeons did the actual surgery on the animal test subjects. The surgical thread is embedded with the stem cells using a “simple” proprietary process.

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Great
By MrPoletski on 7/21/2009 10:54:41 AM , Rating: 3
But far from the most promising uses of stem cells.

I will be happy when:

1) Spinal injuries (paralysis) can be fixed
2) Brain damage such as cereberal palsy can be repaired
3) Replacement organs can be grown for a patient for transplant.

Regarding 3, best place to grow them is in the patients own body. Imagine a chronic lung disease sufferer. You remove one lung and allow a new one to grow in its place, when it is of usable (but not neccesarily full) size then hook it up to the bronchi and after its fully sized then do the other lung. Same thing with kidneys.

I'm no medical expert but I expect you wouldn't need to 'replace' a liver as such, just give it back some liver mass and it'll sort itself out.

The heart will be the most difficult one, where would you grow it?




RE: Great
By Ranari on 7/21/2009 11:15:04 AM , Rating: 3
Good question! Where would you grow a heart? Right next to the dying one. At least, that's what I gather from this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/14/hannah.clark....

Surprisingly, what they found is that the heart has a few tricks of its own. It takes time, but your heart seems to have the ability to completely repair itself. The article was largely based on the immuno-suppressants giving her cancer, but it was interesting that the heart was able to eventually fix itself on its own.

Brain and spinal injuries will be tricky, even with stem cells.


RE: Great
By dagamer34 on 7/21/2009 11:43:56 AM , Rating: 2
I am VERY skeptical when I hear the word "completely" in the world of medicine. Perhaps, "good enough" would be more accurate, but you won't be training for the Olympics, you know...


RE: Great
By Ammohunt on 7/22/2009 2:38:32 PM , Rating: 3
No its true! my heart was broken by a girl named Lori in first grade and it repaired itself.


RE: Great
By tastyratz on 7/21/2009 11:31:00 AM , Rating: 5
[sarcasm]
Yea people shouldn't have been impressed with the Model T either, clearly the automobile was only impressive once we broke 30mpg.
[/sarcasm]

This is a significant stepping stone. You don't START with heart surgery with new technology, but the exciting part is that we most likely will someday get there. We are really messing with nature with this and it needs extensive testing before progressing to such serious surgeries. For all we know synthetic stem cells could morph causing cancer/etc. later on. We are just getting started with them and learning how to use them.

I can see stem cell deposition with a giant glorified inkjet printer for common operations in the future. But that comes in due time, given the significant advances in stem cell research in the last few years We will likely see more and more exciting things.


RE: Great
By lagomorpha on 7/21/2009 10:02:13 PM , Rating: 2
"But far from the most promising uses of stem cells."

You forgot about stem cell breast augmentation!


RE: Great
By MrPoletski on 7/22/2009 8:40:07 AM , Rating: 2
HOORAY FOR BOOBIES!


RE: Great
By ayat101 on 7/22/2009 3:15:41 AM , Rating: 2
Nonsense. Clearly you do not know what is needed or how hard it is to repair damaged tendons and joints.

If you have done any kind of sport, from running to martial arts, you would notice that most people accumulate some kind of tendon and joint damage that never repairs properly. This is a HUGE breakthrough for a lot of people if it works properly.

Too bad though that this probably will not affect joint repair.


RE: Great
By bill3 on 7/22/2009 9:57:46 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I will be happy when:

1) Spinal injuries (paralysis) can be fixed
2) Brain damage such as cereberal palsy can be repaired
3) Replacement organs can be grown for a patient for transplant.


Dont hold your breath.

Science's track record on well, pretty much anything over the last 50 years is pretty much nil.


the rest of the story
By AskTheChief on 7/21/2009 10:57:01 AM , Rating: 2
So surgeons tried it on an animal. What were the results?




RE: the rest of the story
By MrPoletski on 7/21/2009 11:09:35 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
So surgeons tried it on an animal. What were the results?


No, animal trials are currently underway (so the article says). You can't get results before the test is completed.


RE: the rest of the story
By Motoman on 7/21/2009 1:25:47 PM , Rating: 1
Not in science. But that works fine for other things, like "alternative medicine" and religion, for example.


RE: the rest of the story
By AskTheChief on 7/21/2009 1:51:29 PM , Rating: 2
I see where your point, but the last paragraph states "The students developed the process for the design competition, but orthopedic surgeons did the actual surgery on the animal test subjects ." So I looked up the date of Design Day 2009, it was Monday, May 4, 2009. It has been over two months since they won first place in the Design Day competition. I would think that there would be some preliminary results by now.

Too bad there were not any preliminary results available.


RE: the rest of the story
By MrBlastman on 7/21/2009 2:29:11 PM , Rating: 2
It is one thing to be a science fiction writer, it is another to be a true scientist.

They won an award for what? A theory? While theories are important (E=mc^2 anyone), I don't see this as a breakthrough until the results prove that it accomplishes something.

I think it is wonderful they are trying this though and hope it yields faster recovery times. Stem cells promise to change how medicine is done and perhaps reduce the need for invasive procedures in the future. However, it would nice to know what the results are for something like this, especially before an award is given.

Oh well, I suppose that is why it was called a "design competition."


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