The breakthrough raises the possibility that human fat could be used to treat patients who have suffered disabling injuries. Scientists from Duke University Medical Center in the US used a cocktail of steroids and growth factors to retrain cells that would normally form fat tissue into another type of cell known as a chondrocyte, or cartilage cell. We envision being able to remove a little bit of fat, and then grow customised, three-dimensional pieces of cartilage Dr Farshid Guilak, Duke University Medical Center Researchers have been able to create cartilage cells from undifferentiated stem cells taken from samples of bone marrow. But harvesting such cells is invasive and painful for the donor and the number of cells gained is small. For the first time the Duke team demonstrated that cartilage cells can be created from fat removed during liposuction procedures.
Cartilage plays a crucial role in protecting the joints.
There is a real need for a new approach to treating these injuries. The Duke researchers used material collected from liposuction procedures performed on multiple human donors. The material was then treated with a series of enzymes and centrifuged until cells, known as adipose-derived stromal cells, remained. These isolated cells were infused into three-dimensional beads and treated with the biochemical cocktail. After two weeks of growth, the treated cells looked and acted like normal chondrocytes.