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Recent Patents in Bone Graft Substitute for Bone, Tendon, and Ligament Reconstruction
MaCalus V. Hogan, James N. Irvine Jr, Richard Ma, Roshan James, Saadiq F. El-Amin and Quanjun Cui
[Abstract] [FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00001]


Recent Patents on Cell-based Approaches for Intervertebral Disc Regeneration
In-Bo Han, Soo-Woo Kim, Alexander E. Ropper, Devang Thakor, Serdar Kabatas and Yang D. Teng
[Abstract] [FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00002]


Bioreactors for Stimulation of Cells In Vitro: A Review of Recent Patents
Yousef Hojjat and Arkady Voloshin
[Abstract] [FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00003]



Abstracts


Recent Patents in Bone Graft Substitute for Bone, Tendon, and Ligament Reconstruction
MaCalus V. Hogan, James N. Irvine Jr, Richard Ma, Roshan James, Saadiq F. El-Amin and Quanjun Cui
[FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00001]

Treatment of large bone defects poses a real challenge to the orthopaedic surgeon. The surgeon often times calls on creativity in the form of bone graft substitutes to help mend large bone defects. The bone graft substitutes used today include inorganic compounds such as calcium phosphate, osteoconductive composites which act as a scaffold to allow for new bone growth, and some may include osteoinductive proteins which provide signals to the microenvironment promoting osteogenesis. Autologous bone grafts are still the gold standard and this creates a risk of harvest site morbidity and the defect may be too large for autologous bone alone. Injuries requiring tendon or ligament reconstruction rely upon the use of bone blocks in the form of bone-tendon-bone grafts, which can also create a hurdle for the orthopaedist. We have reviewed the current literature and recent patents available on bone graft substitutes and bone blocks for bonetendon- bone grafts and have described new biomaterials and therapeutics available to the orthopaedic surgeon.



Recent Patents on Cell-based Approaches for Intervertebral Disc Regeneration
In-Bo Han, Soo-Woo Kim, Alexander E. Ropper, Devang Thakor, Serdar Kabatas and Yang D. Teng
[FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00002]

Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is a major cause of clinical back pain and thus has a significant clinical impact on life quality of humans. The associated poor intrinsic regeneration capacity of the IVD, due to low cell density, avascular nature of the extracellular matrix (ECM), lack of the lymphatic vessels or innervation leads to an increased susceptibility of IVD to degenerative pathology. During disc degeneration, dehydration of the nucleus pulposus (NP), resulting from loss of proteoglycans and disorganization of the ECM causes an inefficient transfer of load between vertebral bodies triggering further degeneration or even to damage of the annulus fibrosus. Standard treatments focus on removal of the pathological disc tissue combined with spinal fusion. Aside from the high cost of these procedures, it is well known that these surgical treatments currently do not carry ideal efficacy, with post-procedure patients frequently showing recurrent back pain due to possible acceleration of disc degeneration adjacent to fused segments. Therefore there is a growing interest in the transplantation of stem cells for regeneration of the degenerated IVD. The cell-based approach is wideranging, including delivery of exogenous growth factors, introduction of therapeutic genes, co-transplantation of different cell types, and implantation of cell-scaffold composite for tissue and/or chemical engineering purposes. In this review we describe recent patents on cell-based therapy as well as other biological therapies targeting prevention and treatment of IVD degeneration.



Bioreactors for Stimulation of Cells In Vitro: A Review of Recent Patents
Yousef Hojjat and Arkady Voloshin
[FULL-TEXT INQUIRY] [BSP/BIOMENG/E-Pub/00003]

Cell cultivation is a promising remedy for damages of organism tissues. Since the experiments with cells in vivo are very complicated, many researchers are directing their efforts toward cultivation of cells in vitro to avoid this complexity. To achieve this goal, bioreactors are necessary to create the proper situation for cultivation of cells. One of the main requirements for such bioreactors is the ability to create stimulation of the cells. In this paper a number of the US patents and application for patents are reviewed with the emphasis on design and actuation methods. The review shows that three different approaches are mostly used for stimulation and actuation of bioreactors: mechanical, hydraulic and electromagnetic. In this article the core ideas of patents are studied and briefly explained by using illustration. At the end of the article, bioreactors which are developed by the authors are introduced.
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