NCE

Stem cell technologies hold great promise for engineering replacement tissues for repairing functional loss from trauma or disease. Such therapies are particularly important for replacing bone and cartilage in the aging population to maintain an active quality of life. However, the application of stem cells to generate individualized implantable grafts suffers from patient-to-patient variability that is unpredictable and immeasurable without destructive techniques, representing a major bottleneck in translating stem cell technologies to the clinic and delivering a quality product. This process could be markedly improved by the availability of nondestructive, non- or minimally invasive methods to measure dynamic changes in tissue development, thereby reducing the quantity of tissue collection for sufficient cell numbers and cutting costs that do not directly benefit the patient. During tissue formation, cells deposit extracellular matrix molecules that possess a unique fluorescence signature, which can be detected by light, while matrix quantity, detectable by ultrasound, correlates with mechanical strength. In this project, we developed and applied a multi-modal imaging probe that uses light and sound to detect changes in engineered bone and cartilage, which reflect maturity and mechanical properties that are associated with functionality. The long-term impact of this tool is to advance the personalized medicine aspect of stem cell-based tissue formation while providing new insight into dynamic tissue development.