B.G. Negev, the Be'er Sheva University's technology commercialization company, will present, as part of the "Biomed 2013" week exhibition to be held in June in Tel Aviv, an innovative treatment to accelerate the renewal processes of cartilage and bone tissues at the same time by means of innovative biomaterials and administered by injection.
About 1.2 million procedures per year are performed worldwide for the purpose of repairing cartilage damage, the main purpose of which is to allow pain relief and temporary improvement in function. Today, despite many attempts, there are still no effective methods to regenerate cartilage - a tissue that, unlike most other body tissues, does not regenerate itself after an injury.
The treatment, defined by its developers Prof. Samdar Cohen, Dr. Emil Robinov and student Tali Ram from the Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Ben-Gurion University as 'innovative', is designed to accelerate the processes of renewal and repair of cartilage and bone tissue by biomaterials. What is special about these materials, which contain alginate-sulfate, is the fact that they were synthesized by biological inspiration from substances that exist in the body, such as heparin-sulfate, and thus they are able to bind growth factors and biological drugs with an affinity similar to that of the natural binding to heparin in the body. In addition, the process of binding the biological materials to alginate sulfate is spontaneous by electrostatic interactions, without the involvement of organic materials, or the investment of energy. Alginate-sulfate is an inert substance that does not affect physiological systems in the body, therefore, despite being a biological substance given by injection, it is not considered a medicine, but rather a biological device for the transfer and release of substances.
"The initial product that will be developed by us is a preparation for treating the problems of combined cartilage-bone injuries and will be given by injection without the need for invasive methods and without the need for cells," explains Prof. Cohen.
"Since these are biomaterials that can bind a wide variety of growth factors, regeneration and biological drugs, it will be possible to develop a variety of products for the non-invasive treatment of diseases and other damages such as liver damage, neurodegenerative diseases and diseases caused by ischemia."
Comments
I spoke with those concerned and it turns out that there is still a long way to go (a matter of years) until the treatment passes all the tests and is available to humans.
Since the issue is important to me (because my father (=my father, not my father Blizovsky) had all the cartilage worn out in one of his shoulders), I continued to search and came across another development that is already available to humans (although not to everyone, they are currently checking if they can give it to my father) that is commercialized within a company on behalf of CartiHeal
Avi Blizovsky: They may be worth an article.
BSD
How can I hear more details about this breakthrough? I would be happy if someone would contact me.
Is it experimental or something already approved for use?