VATIS UPDATE Article

Researchers from the Department of Textile Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi have been able to achieve a measure of success in developing cartilages that are molecularly similar to the ones seen in human knees. While scientists attempting to tissue-engineer cartilage have focused on growing cells on porous scaffolds, in a paradigm shift, a team led by Dr. Sourabh Ghosh has been successful in 3D bioprinting of cartilage using a bioink.

While the cartilage found in the knee is an articular cartilage that is typically sponge-like and has a huge load-bearing capacity, the ones produced in the lab so far are of a different kind – transient cartilage. Unlike articular cartilage, transient cartilage becomes bone cells and, therefore, brittle within a short time. As a result, the engineered cartilage loses its capacity to bear huge load that is typically encountered in the knee.