Osteochondral Interface: Regenerative Engineering and Challenges.

Osteochondral (OC) defects are debilitating for patients and represent a significant clinical problem for orthopedic surgeons as well as regenerative engineers due to their potential complications, which are likely to lead to osteoarthritis and related diseases. If they remain untreated or are treated suboptimally, OC lesions are known to impact the articular cartilage and the transition from cartilage to bone, that is, the cartilage-bone interface. An important component of the OC interface, that is, a selectively permeable membrane, the tidemark, still remains unaddressed in more than 90% of the published research in the past decade.

Change in Collagen Fibril Diameter Distribution of Bovine Anterior Cruciate Ligament upon Injury Can Be Mimicked in a Nanostructured Scaffold.

More than 200,000 people are suffering from Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) related injuries each year in the US. There is an unmet clinical demand for improving biological attachment between grafts and the host tissue in addition to providing mechanical support. For biological graft integration, it is important to provide a physiologically feasible environment for the host cells to enable them to perform their duties.