Research Matters at the UA’s Arizona Arthritis Center; Grant Supports Bone-Grafting Research
August 31, 2009
TUCSON, Ariz. – Tissue banks may be able to better match the needs of recipients, thanks to a new research project at the Arizona Arthritis Center at The University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Arizona Arthritis Center senior scientist John A. Szivek, PhD, has won a $125,000, one-year research grant from the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, the nation’s largest tissue bank, to improve the success of bone and cartilage graftings, by adding cartilage engineered in the lab to the grafts.
Demand is spiraling in the United States for donated bone-cartilage grafts to treat osteoarthritis, as well as cancer and trauma. Often donor bone and cartilage is unavailable or not usable because it is the wrong shape or size for implanting. More commonly, the donor bone is excellent but the cartilage surface is inadequate.
In this research project, Dr. Szivek and his team will grow cartilage in his lab from fat-derived stem cells on donated bone that has cartilage surfaces considered inadequate for grafting, making use of donated specimens that in the past would have been discarded. Also, the engineered cartilage can be grown on oddly shaped bone specimens so that the graft exactly meets the size and configuration needs of a particular patient, thus increasing the chances of the graft’s success.
As well as serving as a senior scientist in the Arizona Arthritis Center, Dr. Szivek is director of the UA Orthopaedic Research Laboratory and is a professor in the UA Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering Program, BIO5, and the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.