The secret of getting them to go down one road of development as opposed to another lies in the nourishment. The other main manipulation was to put them into a three dimensional gel so that they retained their structural shape. The type of cells they were trying to get do not appear if grown, as is usually done, on a flat piece of glass. They checked and the cells were indeed expressing the genes associated with chondrocytes as opposed to the genes expressed by fat cells. Bone marrow cells have been made to do this but getting bone marrow from a patient is painful, and only a few cells can be removed.
Fat cells are plentiful and easy to get to.
The cell transplants have grown in mice without reverting to fat or bone, but Guilak said his team wants to do more experiments before they test the cells in people. Erickson, who will present the findings to a meeting of the Orthopedic Research Society in San Francisco, and Guilak are working with Durham-based Artecel Sciences, which holds a patent on the technology. Send it . Use this version. Wired Digital Inc., a Lycos Network site.