You inject a ‘liquid plaster’ into the worn-out knee of an osteoarthritis patient. The plaster hardens in the joint and attaches to the damaged cartilage, then induces the body to repair the damage. A few weeks later the patient can walk pain-free and problem-free again. This is the ideal Professor Marcel Karperien of the University of Twente’s MIRA research institute sees before him – but an ideal that he believes could be put into practice within a few years. He will explain his method during the inaugural lecture that he is to give at the UT on 6 June.
Thirty percent of the Dutch population will struggle with osteoarthritis at some time in their lives. It is a typical disease of old age and therefore faces more and more people in an ageing population. There is also a growing group of people who suffer the limitations of osteoarthritis at an early age, for example as a result of a sports injury such as torn cruciate ligaments or meniscus damage.
Osteoarthritis causes cartilage in the joints to deteriorate and in some cases even disappear completely. There is still no cure for the disease; current treatment is designed mainly to relieve the pain. Some patients are now given artificial joint replacements.
UT Professor Marcel Karperien is working on a new treatment method that could in principle cure the condition completely. “The prevailing scientific dogma is that cartilage, which acts like a shock absorber in a joint, is unable to repair itself.” But this dogma will soon be demolished once and for all, says Karperien: “Cartilage has an intrinsic self-healing ability. We just need to ensure that we can tap into that ability. That requires a multidisciplinary approach, combining knowledge from developmental biology and medical science with high-tech technology.”
Injectable plaster
Karperien is working on a method which involves injecting a biomaterial containing the patient’s own stem cells and cartilage cells into the joint. This injectable plaster fills up the space where the cartilage has been lost, creating an environment in which the damaged cartilage can repair itself. After a while – once the cartilage defect has been repaired – the body breaks down the biomaterial automatically.
Laboratory work and initial tests on laboratory animals show that the basic technology works. Provided the follow-up experiments go well Karperien expects that the method will be able to be used for the first time on osteoarthritis patients in an experimental setting in a few years’ time. “Eventually we can probably even create a cell-free plaster (in other words without cartilage and stem cells from the patient) that orchestrates cartilage repair.”
The technology could also be used to repair other organs, at least in theory. Researchers in Karperien’s department are working on methods of using the injectable plaster (in spray form) e.g. to heal skin wounds, or transplant pancreatic islets so as to cure type 1 diabetes.
Marcel Karperien
Marcel Karperien (1967) studied Biology at Utrecht University. He gained his PhD at the Hubrecht Institute in 1995, after which he worked at Leiden University Medical Centre. Since 2007 he has been on the staff of the University of Twente, where in 2012 he set up the Department of Developmental BioEngineering, part of the UT’s MIRA research institute. In his research Karperien works in close collaboration with the Reumafonds (Arthritis Fund).
Inaugural lecture
Prof. Karperien is to give his inaugural lecture on 6 June at 16:00 in the Breedveld Hall of the Waaier Building on the University of Twente campus. Before the lecture there will be a mini-symposium at 12:00 noon entitled Cartilage Regeneration: Genes, Cells and Technology.
Press note:
For more information, or to request an interview or a digital version of the inaugural lecture Pleisters Plakken (under embargo until the address has been given), please contact UT Science Information Officer Joost Bruysters (06 1048 8228).
