18 Oct : British scientists are on track to develop a stem cell jab treatment that they claim could end the need for painful hip and knee replacement surgeries.
A team at Manchester University, which is developing the new treatment, says that within ten years, damaged joints or hips could be rejuvenated by injections of stem cells, a news paper reported.
Those likely to benefit from the treatment include sufferers of osteoarthritis, which is caused by wear and tear of cartilage that helps joints take the strain of bending, lifting, gripping and kneeling, say the scientists.
The latest research, which centres around the power of embryonic stem cells to turn into other cell types, raises the hope of a simple alternative to knee and hip replacement surgeries.
The scientists have found the “recipe” to coax stem cells into quickly transforming into chondrocytes, the cells that go on to produce cartilage.
And, up to 97 per cent of the cells generated in experiments were chondrocytes, making the technique much more successful than methods tried elsewhere.
Lead scientist Prof Sue Kimber said: “The beauty is that it takes just two weeks in a dish and it gives a high efficiency of cells which have the characteristics of immature chondrocytes.
The hope for future would be to inject the cells into a joint and have them make cartilage in natural setting.”
The use of embryonic stem cells in medicine is controversial because they are plucked from an embryo in its first days of life.
But the scientists say they are easier to work with in the lab and multiply more quickly than stem cells taken from the adult body.
Tests on animals will follow, and although much more research is necessary, a stem cell jab for human joints could be available in just a decade.
The treatment may also be suitable for injured sportsmen and women judged to be too young to undergo the trauma of joint replacement surgery.
Team member Tim Hardingham said: “The use of these stem cell derived chondrocytes may lead to simpler surgical procedures and it raises possibility of using one source of banked cells for many patients with inherent reduced costs.”
The findings have been published in the ‘Nature Biotechnology’ journal.