ATLANTA, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers have found a way to use skin cells to create artificial bones that can blend into tendons and ligaments.
The artificial bones provide better integration with the body, allowing them to handle weight more successfully, Georgia Institute of Technology said Friday.
The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the technology holds promise for applications such as anterior cruciate ligament surgery.
"One of the biggest challenges in regenerative medicine is to have a graded continuous interface, because anatomically that's how the majority of tissues appear and there are studies that strongly suggest that the graded interface provides better integration and load transfer," Andres Garcia, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Tech, said in a statement.
The tissue was created by coating a three-dimensional polymer scaffold with a gene delivery vehicle that encodes a transcription factor known as Runx2. The skin cells on the parts of the scaffold containing a high concentration of Runx2 turned into bone, while the skin cells on the scaffold end with no Runx2 turned into soft tissue.
