The role of adult stem cells is to renew our tissues, and each type of cell has an equivalent stem cell to produce it. The stem cells that produce bone cells are called mesenchymal stem cells. Having built the scaffold, Professor Seifalian’s team implanted it with mesenchymal stem cells taken from the patient’s bone marrow and placed the whole object into the bioreactor. These stem cells then turned into a range of different cells that started to build cartilage and other structures, creating a living, self-sustaining cellular environment, while at the same time dissolving the scaffold around
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