Scaffold-free tissue-engineered cartilage grafts for nasal reconstructive surgery

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Mark Jakob
• Subject Area: Otolaryngology, Phoniatrics and Audiology
• Term: from 2012 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 228632078

Scaffold-free tissue-engineered cartilage grafts for nasal reconstructive surgery - Due to the low regeneration capacity of cartilage tissue, the treatment of cartilaginous malformations and damages represent a great challenge to the head and neck or maxillofacial surgeon. Tissue engineering research has opened up new perspectives for the treatment of cartilaginous defects in the head and neck area. With tissue engineering, it is potentially possible to grow sufficient cartilage of the septum or other cartilaginous parts of the nasal framework in the desired shape and size in vitro for use in surgical reconstructions. Tissue engineered grafts on different scaffolds caused a local foreign body reaction to the scaffold in vivo, which degraded the engineered cartilage. As a result of these findings it is useful to develop techniques for fabrication of cartilage grafts without the use of a scaffold in an effort to avoid the foreign body reaction. We assume that scaffold-free engineered sheets of cartilage can be used to fabricate an autologous neo-nasal cartilage graft in vitro with adequate mechanical integrity, ideal size, and form for nasal reconstructive surgery. Due to their chondrogenic differentiation potential in vitro, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are considered an attractive alternative cell source for tissue engineering and treatment of nasal cartilage defects. MSCs may alleviate the problem of insufficient chondrocyte cell numbers or dedifferentiation during cell expansion, as they are able to both replicate themselves and differentiate in response to a variety of growth factors. Therefore, we will investigate the cross talk between human bone-marrow mesenchymal stem cells (bmMSCs) and human chondrocytes in an in vitro co-culture system.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Dr. James E. Dennis