DiskedInj

Pain occurring at the vertebral column (also called low back pain, abbreviated LBP), affects a large portion of the population worldwide. It is estimated that almost 600 million people are suffering from this condition to an extent that they need medical treatment. Direct health care costs through medication, surgeries, aftercare, and rehabilitation together with indirect costs through loss of productivity and absenteeism from work, represent a high cost for the developed countries. LBP are usually originating from degraded or herniated intervertebral disc (IVD). In healthy condition, IVDs work as shock absorbers between the vertebra and they provide flexibility to the backbone of our body. But once IVDs are degenerated, the patients can no longer freely move and feel chronic pain in the back. LBP is a huge healthcare problem in our society as there is so far no available therapies which can reverse the biological process and restore IVD functionality. The aim of DiskedInj project is to develop new therapy, based on a combination of aggregates of stem cells taken from the patients, called cellular spheroids, together with really small cages, called microscaffolds. The role of those microscaffolds is to protect the cells from external damages and to give signals to the tissue to repair shortly after their injection into the IVD. During this project, we will study how this therapy can stimulate the regeneration of damaged IVD. In DiskedInj, we plan to tackle LBP through a multidisciplinary vision. First, Mathematical modelling will be involved to help us in deciding on the best quantity of cells to be injected together with the most suitable microscaffold design. Then, high resolution 3D printing will be employed to produce the microscaffolds and will be combined with spheroids. Finally, we will use different biological models to assess how our therapy can repair IVDs. To reach the goal of DisedkInj, this multidisciplinary project gathers scientific expertise from different countries in Europe, in the field of biomaterials, chemistry, biology, microscopy, organ culture and mechanics. Partners are working in Austria at the TU Wien (Dr. Guillaume O. and Prof. Ovsianikov A. from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology, and Prof. Hellmich C. from the Institute for Mechanics of Materials and Structures). We will collaborate with the AO foundation in Switzerland (Dr. Grad S. from the Intervertebral disc and cartilage biology group) and with Prof. Razansky from the Preclinical Imaging Center (PIC) of the ETH Zürich. Finally, one partner is located in France, Prof. Avril S. in the biomedical engineering department at Mines Saint-Etienne. If successful, our strategy could be employed to treat not only IVD degeneration, but also to develop novel tissue engineering and regenerative medicine systems that could potentially be applied to treat other tissue damages.