麻豆影院

As a former point guard who pounded her knees on high school and college hardwoods,聽Kristi Anseth聽(PhDChemEngr鈥�94) feels your pain.

As a CU-麻豆影院 researcher in tissue engineering, she鈥檚 doing something about it.

The energetic 41-year-old CU distinguished chemical and biological engineering professor and her team of 30 engineers, scientists and students have spent a decade devising ways to put the spring back into the steps of aging, aching knees and hips. If their cutting-edge research with water-based materials proves successful in repairing joint cartilage, they could transform the way knee and hip problems are treated.

鈥淢ost people go to see their orthopedic surgeon when they experience a lot of pain from moving their joints,鈥� says Anseth who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. 鈥淭hat means a lot of their cartilage has degenerated all the way down to the bone, which is tough to fix,鈥� she says, explaining cartilage has a limited ability to heal.

As a result, injuries that took place years ago can come back to haunt you as you age. Take, for example, the knee you injured playing soccer when you were 20. By the time you hit 50, the small defect to your cartilage has grown larger and typically you need a total joint replacement.

Anseth and her team hope to intervene before patients need artificial hips or knees.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been developing different types of biological materials that can help promote healing,鈥� she says. 鈥淗ydrogels 鈥� Jell-O is a hydrogel 鈥� are basically materials that like water a lot but they don鈥檛 dissolve. They鈥檙e really good for a lot of biomaterial applications because our body has a lot of water.鈥�

Putting gels to the test

This year, Cartilix, a California biotechnology company, tested Anseth鈥檚 hydrogels on 15 people in Europe. Most of the people in this study had significant degradation and would have undergone surgery. Instead, the patients鈥� cartilage cells were harvested and multiplied in a bioreactor, a device that cultures cells. Then, the company injected the CU-designed hydrogel into the patients鈥� knees via an arthroscopic procedure.

The hydrogel served as a 鈥渟caffold鈥� upon which the cells grew and formed new cartilage to replace the cushioning that had deteriorated. The human test followed animal testing in which researchers injected the gels into three-year-old goats.

Preliminary reports from the study are very encouraging, albeit limited statistically with just 15 people involved. The six-month follow-up with MRIs shows good restoration of the filling, patients鈥� pain index is down and mobility is up.

But Anseth emphasizes the need to follow the patients over time. Her research team wants to know whether the repair will be stable and if it will be subject to degradation. To answer these questions, the Anseth team will raise funds for a larger trial involving several hundred subjects.

The Buffs鈥� head team physician聽Eric McCarty聽(Kines鈥�88, MD鈥�93), an all-Big Eight linebacker during his CU playing days, has been following Anseth鈥檚 research.

鈥淭his could be one of the next breakthroughs in treating cartilage problems,鈥� McCarty, an orthopedic surgeon, says. 鈥淚t has so much potential that you could utilize it on a weekly basis with the people we see.

鈥�. . . The reason why people have to retire in pros or college is often a cartilage defect,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f [the hydrogel method] is found to be very effective in a clinical setting, it might be the go-to way to treat cartilage damage early on.鈥�

The promises of tissue engineering

Anseth weighs the promise of tissue engineering against total knee and hip replacements, which work pretty well. Tissue engineering鈥檚 downside is regrowing cartilage is expensive since doctors need to do a biopsy to retrieve some of a patient鈥檚 cells, grow those cells in a bioreactor and then inject them into the body.

But getting a hip replaced, for example, has its negatives. The problem, she notes, is many people who suffer from pain delay surgery because they want the artificial hip to last their lifetimes. In effect, some people suffer for a decade in their 50s, experiencing intense pain when moving certain parts of their bodies.

Right now it鈥檚 not clear what鈥檚 going to be reimbursed by health insurance policies, but Anseth predicts this will change in time. And she says tissue engineers have bigger targets in their sights, such as heart valves. Anseth currently collaborates with professor Leslie Leinwand of molecular, cellular and developmental biology to develop replacement heart valves.

鈥淏abies are born with heart valve defects and there鈥檚 no good solution,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey face multiple surgeries because they鈥檙e growing so fast. If you could design a heart valve that was a living, engineered tissue, it would have the ability to grow with the child and last a lifetime.鈥�

Anseth is convinced that in her lifetime researchers are going to be able to develop a broad range of healing tissues.

鈥淚 have a 2-year-old daughter (Riley) and it鈥檚 amazing how fast she鈥檚 growing and developing,鈥� she remarks. 鈥淗ow does a body know how to do that? I look at her and marvel about what the future holds for her. And I want to make certain that she can see what her mom did to try to make an impact, a difference in society and hopefully that will motivate her.鈥�

Under the same roof

Making a difference forms the core emphasis of Anseth鈥檚 lab, which is a multidisciplinary hub of science where biologists, chemists, bio-engineers, chemical engineers and medical fellows have landed. Her team eventually will be housed in the pioneering Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building, which broke ground on east campus in September. The building will enable a multidisciplinary group of more than 60 faculty members and 500 researchers to collaborate on a variety of pressing human health problems from cancer, aging and cardiovascular disease to inherited diseases, vaccine development and tissue engineering.

鈥淚n some of [Nobel Laureate and CU chemistry and biochemistry professor] Tom Cech鈥檚 words, chemistry happens because molecules and atoms collide together with the right orientation and velocity,鈥� Anseth says. 鈥淭hese types of productive collisions are exactly what we鈥檙e aiming for with researchers [in the new building] 鈥� unexpected events that may lead to profound new directions, collaboration and discoveries.鈥�

To say Anseth is a rising star is a vast understatement, and she is credited for taking on the enormous task of bringing researchers from different scientific disciplines together to find solutions to human health issues.

鈥淯ntil you鈥檝e been in the middle of it or been on either side of it, it鈥檚 hard to really see the big gap between the biology and chemistry side of tissue engineering and how people will generally stay in their own field,鈥� says聽Pete Mariner聽(PhDMCDBio鈥�03), a doctoral researcher and Howard Hughes Medical Group lab manager who works with the Anseth group.

鈥淏ridging that gap and being able to work somewhere between both fields is something most people don鈥檛 have the capacity to do,鈥� he says. 鈥淜risti not only has the capacity 鈥� she鈥檚 obviously succeeding.鈥�