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Bioactive Surgical was the corporate sponsor that developed the patent-pending

Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering students recently took first prize in the university’s Design Day 2009 competition for showing a method that can be used to place a patient’s adult stem cells into sutures. Sutures (for instance Ethicon suture Covidien suture, Autosuture) is the surgical needle that is used to close wounds by medical professionals. Suture needles are used to sew sutures to the tissue.

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This specific technique that embeds adult stem cells in surgical thread was designed to treat serious orthopedic injuries , such as ruptured tendon. The goal of this technique is to improve the healing process, by reducing inflammation and speeding healing by releasing growth proteins. The chance of re-injury will be decreased as well. Because the cells are directly from patients, reject will not be a problem. So far preliminary test results are promising-indications show that the cells attached to the sutures survive the wound closure process and keep the ability to become replacement tissue such as cartilage.

The project was a series of phases. Bioactive Surgical was the corporate sponsor that developed the patent-pending idea of the suture-based embedding of cells and then arranged for the student group to conduct the tests. In the beginning, the team needed to find a device capable of producing sutures that could ensure the viability of the cells as well as efficiently deliver them to the tissue. Students from the undergraduate level together with orthopedic surgeons, began to evaluate stem cell sutures on animal models , hoping that stem cells could significantly speed up and enhance recovery. Students also took on tasks like the preparation of grant applications to obtain additional funds.

The procedure could be like this: the doctor would collect stem cells from bone marrow of a hip joint of a patient, then embed stem cells in the suture using an exclusive process that stitches the injury to the joint by using standard suture needles that are specially-designed sutures.

Currently tendon repair surgeries are performed with sutures of conventional type, such as the brands like Ethicon suture Covidien suture Autosuture or by using the Ethicon closed wound product.