A Lab-On-a-Chip to isolate stem cells for bone regeneration

With advances in global Health and Medical Care we are now living longer but an aging society brings new problems such as bone loss due to trauma and disease such as fractures and osteoporosis.

Stem cells found in our human bone marrow have the wonderful ability to form bone, cartilage or fat. They provide an unlimited source for bone regeneration but the current methods for their isolation lack the purity needed for clinical application. In our work, we use small microchips and channels the size of a human hair to characterise these cells and find their unique fingerprint within the complex bone marrow tissue. With our findings we aim to develop new ways to isolate bone stem cells on a chip with enhanced purity and number which will allow us to use them to tissue engineer bone and for stem cell therapies with significant therapeutic potential for an increasing aging population.

Tuesday 24th May 20-16 at 7.00 pm - A Pint of Science .