{"id":124101,"date":"2017-04-03T15:05:22","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=124101"},"modified":"2017-04-07T10:43:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T14:43:08","slug":"stem-cell-fabric-innovation-regrows-rotator-cuffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/04\/stem-cell-fabric-innovation-regrows-rotator-cuffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem Cell Fabric Innovation Regrows Rotator Cuffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every time you throw a ball, swing a golf club, reach for a jar on a shelf, or cradle a baby, you can thank your rotator cuff. This nest of tendons connecting your arm bone to your shoulder socket is a functional marvel, but it\u2019s also prone to tearing and difficult to surgically repair. Now, a team of researchers from UConn Health has found a way to regenerate rotator cuff tendons after they\u2019re torn.<\/p>\n

Rotator cuff problems are common, with about 2 million people afflicted and about 300,000 rotator cuff repair surgeries every year in the U.S. Surgeons have many techniques to reconnect the tendon to the bone. The problem is that often they don\u2019t stay reconnected.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp to 60 percent of the time after surgery, there\u2019s a re-rupture,\u201d says Dr. Cato Laurencin, Van Dusen Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UConn Health. And that means more surgery, or learning to live with reduced mobility in the joint. Orthopaedic surgeons struggle with this constantly. They would love to have a better way.<\/p>\n

Laurencin and his colleagues report in the April 3 issue of the journal PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a> that they may have found one. Using a nano-textured fabric seeded with stem cells, they were able to get torn rotator cuff tendons to regenerate in animals. Not only did the tendons wrapped in the fabric make a better attachment to the bone, they were stronger overall, with a cell structure that looked more like natural, undamaged tissue. Tendons repaired with a purely surgical technique healed with a more disorganized cell structure, which made the tendon itself weaker and more prone to failure.<\/p>\n

The combination of the \u201cnano-mesh\u201d with stem cells seems to be critical. Surgeons will sometimes inject stem cells into rotator cuff repairs, but results from this technique are mixed. Stem cells alone don\u2019t necessarily stick around at the surgery site. Adding the mesh changes that. The mesh, made of a nanostructured polymer combining polycaprolactone and polyphosphazene \u2013 pioneered in Laurencin\u2019s laboratory \u2013 provides an attractive habitat for the stem cells to hunker down. Once they settle into the rotator cuff location, the stem cells begin sending out signals directing other cells to align and grow into tendon tissue.<\/p>\n

Images taken at six and 12 weeks in animals show that torn rotator cuff tissue reorganizes under the influence of the matrix and stem cells. Once the tendon is fully regenerated, the polymer matrix can dissolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope to use this technology to create new methodologies in rotator cuff repair,\u201d Laurencin says.<\/p>\n

And if the combo polymer mesh plus stem cell technique proves durable in human rotator cuff tendons, he won\u2019t stop there. \u201cBeing able to regenerate complex soft tissues like the rotator cuff is an important step, but we have even bigger goals,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Their results have already laid the groundwork for regenerating tendons in other joints, including the knee. His long-term project is called the Hartford Engineering a Limb Project or H.E.A.L. Funded by a National Institutes of Health Pioneer Award, an Emerging Frontiers Grant from the National Science Foundation, and grants from the state of Connecticut, his project aims to regrow entire joints and limbs. Working with a team of bioengineers, materials scientists, surgeons, and developmental biologists, Laurencin believes the ambitious goal can be achieved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A team of researchers from UConn Health has found a way to regenerate rotator cuff tendons after they\u2019re torn, using a nano-textured fabric seeded with stem cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":124211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2076,1868,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1899],"class_list":["post-124101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-research","category-meds","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 05:30:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124101"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124536,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124101\/revisions\/124536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/124211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124101"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=124101"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=124101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}