University of Birmingham Enterprise, the institution’s tech transfer arm, today disclosed research findings that could eventually help regenerate the hard tissues found in human bones, teeth and cartilage, in a paper published in Scientific Reports.
The research has been patented to protect work by Sophie Cox, a lecturer in the university’s Tissue Regeneration and Interfaces Lab, and Owen Davies, a fellow of both University of Birmingham and Loughborough University with expertise in hard tissue engineering.
Their approach combines extra-cellular vesicles, often a by-product of cells capable of transmitting biological signals, with phosphate therapy, which stimulates the mineral responsible for healthy bones and teeth.
Historically, it has been impossible to adequately repair substantial hard tissue fractures. Research approaches have included bone grafting or growth proteins, but these can be prohibitively expensive, ineffective or prone to infection.
Cox said: “Though we can never fully mimic the complexity of vesicles produced by cells in nature, this work describes a new pathway harnessing natural developmental processes to facilitate hard tissue repair.”
Davies added: “It is early days but the potential is there for this to transform the way we approach tissue repair. We are now looking to produce these therapeutically valuable particles at scale and also examine their capacity to regenerate other tissues.”
