• Text in Japanese

We use artificially manufactured hyaline cartilage to treat damaged/ degenerated joints

Articular cartilage has critical functions such as load-bearing, shock absorption and supporting smooth joint movement. It is an indispensable tissue for our daily life. At the same time, since articular cartilage is avascular, self-repairing capacity is lacking upon damage or degeneration. There are several symptomatic treatments such as microfracturing to induce marrow bleeding or autologous (self) cartilage implantation with no avail to consistently regenerating hyaline-like articular cartilage.

Our lab is a Joint Research Chair that aims to develop a novel regenerative medicine using iPSC-derived cartilage, which is a collaborative work of Graduate School of Medicine Tissue Biochemistry Lab and Asahi Kasei Corporation, against cartilage damage and degeneration . Since iPSC can self-reproduce, is allows us to consistently manufacture hyaline cartilage. iPSC-derived cartilage technology allows us to treat patients with off-the-shelf products which structurally resemble healthy cartilage tissue expecting functional recovery (Photo 1). In order to maximize the value of iPSC-derived cartilage against diseases such as osteoarthritis, our current interest is to establish appropriate surgical procedure for implantation and also to acquire PoC in vivo and in vitro.　

Photo 1. Histological image of 4 weeks after iPS cartilage transplantation to the defect created in the knee joint of a mini-pig
Regeneration in type II collagen-positive hyaline cartilage-like tissue