Artificial cartilage just five years away

Kyriacos A. Athanasiou believes he can create artificial cartilage for knee joints, jaws and similar applications within five years.

Athanasiou, a bioengineering professor at Rice, across the street from the Texas Medical Center, has developed a method for creating cartilage from stem cells.

While much of the work so far uses animal stem cells, the team believes it could get further, faster, if U.S. limits on the use of human stem cells were lifted.

Artificial cartilage would be extremely useful in cases of severe sports injuries or osteoarthritis. His specific studies involve knee joints.

The tissues we study- articular cartilage, the knee meniscus, and the temporomandibular joint disc- exhibit little to no intrinsic ability to self-repair. In addition, they have very demanding biomechanical functions.

As baby boomers continue to age, the market for this seems limitless.