PatIntNews

Dr. Douglas Hamilton, a dental researcher at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry has recently received a fund of nearly $163,000, was provided by The Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). He has received the fund to engineer a stronger bone and cartilage tissue to treat patients with traumatic injuries or bone diseases.

Tissue engineering is an important method to treat diseases like arthritis, osteoporosis, fibrosis, periodontal disease and traumatic injuries.

However, bone and cartilage developed in the laboratory were not so capable in the body and so they were not clinically viable.

"In many instances our ability to help tissues such as bone to repair is limited as we don't fully understand how human tissues respond to the presence of artificial materials. This becomes even more problematic in tissues that are loaded due to normal human activity," says Hamilton. "With the funding from the CFI, we are establishing an innovative laboratory that will allow us to study how cells respond to both mechanical stimulation and biomaterials such as titanium at the same time.

The fund received by Hamilton and the Centre for the Study of Biomaterials and Tissue Regeneration would help them in acquiring specialized equipment to evaluate cell responses to a various mechanical forces and biomaterial types molecular biology and imaging techniques.

"We anticipate learning much about how cells sense their environment and subsequently regenerate tissues, which will be important in orthopaedics, dentistry, and cardiovascular medicine," he adds.