Patent ID: 7887843

Claim:
A method for treating a defect in cartilage tissue of a patient, the method consisting of: (a) isolating cartilage cells from a human or animal organism, (b) subjecting said cells to stationary suspension culture in a cell culture vessel having a hydrophobic surface and tapered bottom to form a cell aggregate in the form of a spheroid, wherein said culturing is performed in a cell culture medium consisting of: (i) DMEM, or DMEM and HAMS, and (ii) a serum chosen as one of autogenous, xenogeneic and allogenic with respect to the patient, and wherein said spheroid comprises at least 40% by volume of extracellular matrix (ECM), differentiated cells embedded within the ECM, has an outer region comprising cells capable of proliferation and migration, and has a size defined as one of: (i) a diameter of 500-700 μm, (ii) containing 1×10 4 to 1×10 7 cells, or (iii) a size that may be produced in a well of a 96-well cell culture plate, (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) to obtain a plurality of spheroids as a transplant material, or, alternatively, (c′) repeating steps (a) and (b) to form at least two spheroids, and then fusing the at least two spheroids by culturing the at least two spheroids together according to (b) to obtain a single spheroid as a transplant material, and (d) transplanting the transplant material into the defect of the patient, wherein between (a) and (b) the cells may optionally be grown in a monolayer culture, or in a case in which the cell culture vessel has a non-hydrophobic surface, between (a) and (b) the surface of the cell culture vessel can be rendered hydrophobic by coating the surface with agar or agarose.