Building Better Tendons
Laboratory tissue engineering continues to improve in sophistication, as noted by the New Scientist: "only now have researchers managed to make different tissues blend into one another, as they do naturally in the body. Such gradients are necessary for some structures and organs to function properly ... In the body, gradients like this strengthen the ends of tendons that attach to bones. Currently, lab-grown tendons put into the body often fail at the attachment end because they lack this property ... [the] new technique should lead to more lifelike artificially-grown tendons, and better treatments for injuries like ruptured Achilles tendons. The technique could also be applicable to other tissues, such as blood vessels .. At the heart of the new technique is a gene that triggers the fibroblast cells that make up tendons to start forming bone. The team used viruses carrying that gene to transform a tendon made from normal fibroblasts into one with a gradient of bony properties ... So far, the researchers have shown that tendons made this way are stable when implanted under the skin of rats. The next step is to graft a tendon to connect bone and muscle in a rat and see if it really does perform better."
Link: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14512-labgrown-tendons-gradually-fade-to-bone.html