Development of Standardized Fetal Progenitor Cell Therapy for Cartilage Regenerative Medicine: Industrial Transposition and Preliminary Safety in Xenogeneic Transplantation.

Diverse cell therapy approaches constitute prime developmental prospects for managing acute or degenerative cartilaginous tissue affections, synergistically complementing specific surgical solutions. Bone marrow stimulation (i.e.

Diagnosing peri-implant disease using the tongue as a 24/7 detector.

Our ability of screening broad communities for clinically asymptomatic diseases critically drives population health. Sensory chewing gums are presented targeting the tongue as 24/7 detector allowing diagnosis by "anyone, anywhere, anytime". The chewing gum contains peptide sensors consisting of a protease cleavable linker in between a bitter substance and a microparticle.

Using the fish plasma model for comparative hazard identification for pharmaceuticals in the environment by extrapolation from human therapeutic data.

Thousands of drugs are currently in use, but only for a few of them experimental chronic fish data exist. Therefore, Huggett et al. (Human Ecol Risk Assess 2003; 9:1789-1799) proposed the fish plasma model (FPM) to extrapolate the potential of unintended long-term effects in fish.

Reporting and evaluation criteria as means towards a transparent use of ecotoxicity data for environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals.

Ecotoxicity data with high reliability and relevance are needed to guarantee the scientific quality of environmental risk assessments of pharmaceuticals. The main advantages of a more structured approach to data evaluation include increased transparency and predictability of the risk assessment process, and the possibility to use non-standard data. In this collaboration, between the research project MistraPharma and the German Federal Environment Agency, a new set of reporting and evaluation criteria is presented and discussed.

Highly active human pharmaceuticals in aquatic systems: A concept for their identification based on their mode of action.

Widespread occurrence of traces of pharmaceuticals (ng/L to microg/L) has been reported in aquatic systems. However, their effects on the environment and their environmental risks remain elusive. Generally, the acute toxicity towards non-target organisms has been assessed in laboratory experiments, but chronic toxicity studies have been performed only rarely.

Regulatory demands on data quality for the environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals.

The evaluation of the quality of data and their use within the review of environmental risk assessment of human as well as veterinary pharmaceuticals is described from a regulatory point of view. A definition and differentiation in three categories for the reliability of data are given. Existing criteria relating to international testing standards for categorising reliability are adopted for their use within the environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals.

Environmental impact assessment and control of pharmaceuticals: the role of environmental agencies.

In 2005, the new legislation for pharmaceuticals came into effect. Since then environmental risk assessments are required for all new marketing authorisation applications. The German Federal Environment Agency has been assessing the environmental impact of 136 veterinary and 134 human pharmaceuticals.

Silk based biomaterials to heal critical sized femur defects.

Bone auto- and allografts have inherent drawbacks, therefore the treatment of non-unions and critical size defects in load bearing long bones would benefit from the use of osteopromotive biodegradable, biocompatible and mechanically durable matrices to enhance migration or delivery of cell populations and/or morphogens/cytokines. Silk fibroin biomaterial scaffolds were evaluated as osteopromotive matrices in critical sized mid-femoral segmental defects in nude rats. Four treatment groups were assessed over 8 weeks in vivo: silk scaffolds (SS) with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) that had previously been differentiated along an osteoblastic lineage in vitro (group I; pdHMSC/SS); SS with undifferentiated hMSCs (group II; udHMSC/SS); SS alone (group III; SS); and empty defects (group IV).

Quality targets for concentrations of hazardous substances in surface waters in Germany.

During the past several years, in Germany, a federal government/federal states working group prepared a "guide document for the derivation of quality targets designed to protect inland surface waters against hazardous substances." In May 1993 the 40th Conference of Environment Ministers (Umweltministerkonferenz) adopted the guide document subject to further trial. Based on the guide document it will be possible to define water quality requirements in the field of water resources management, e.