Скачать или смотреть 🎧 The Power of Regenerative Medicine

The field of regenerative medicine is transforming how we approach healing tissues, disease treatment and whole organ replacement. Using cutting-edge techniques, biomaterial engineering and gene editing, the future of treatment for people with burns, cancers, birth defects or even diabetes may look very different than it does today. We’ll explore how a unique skeletal tissue might help those suffering from facial injuries in the U.S. National Science Foundation’s “Discovery Files”.

“A lot of understanding now exists of what can we do and what else we need to learn to do to really translate all these approaches into real therapies that could help people.”

Maksim Plikus is a professor at the University of California, Irvine where his NSF-supported lab has comprehensively characterized the properties of a previously overlooked but abundant type o f skeletal tissue with potential for advancing tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

The tissue, called "lipocartilage," is packed with fat-filled cells that act like balloons to provide stable internal support. The tissue would be particularly useful for flexible body part reconstruction, such as in earlobes or the tip of the nose.

“We realized that there's so many unique aspects about this tissue and about the cells. We still know very little, but we're actually super excited because of what's possible, what's lying ahead.”

Learn more about this research by listening to "NSF's Discovery Files" podcast, Lipocartilage and Regenerative Medicine.