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"Eye of Newt" Leads Regenerative Therapy in Osteoarthritis

Regeneration of cartilage is the holy grail of osteoarthritis research.  Currently, there are both research and commercial efforts to use bone marrow stem cells intraarticularly as "regenerative therapy" to generate cartilage repair and improve functional outcomes. Thus far, there is little data and little science to either judge or endorse its utility.

Unfortunately, there are fewer stem cells in the elderly who are affected by OA. Researchers at the University of York in the UK have used cells from the newt to learn how to "dedifferentiate" cells back to an embryonic stage. Cells in newts can change in response to injury -- a process known as dedifferentiation. The cells aggregate and return to a stem cell-like state to allow them to increase in numbers and generate the specialised cells needed for new tissue formation. 

Scientists have used this process to grow human cells in 3D clusters and shown that human cells can be dedifferentiated and be capable of generating new tissues.  More research is needed on this novel approach to show how to generate tissue repair in damaged joints.

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The author has no conflicts of interest to disclose related to this subject