Cell Therapy and Tissue Engineering Strategies in Rheumatic Diseases

Tissue engineering (TE) has long been considered a promising option to regenerate cartilage lost due to the progression of osteoarthritis. Next generation TE approaches need to reproduce cartilage characteristic zonal architecture and TE studies should employ conditions similar to those in OA cartilage, i.e. an inflammatory, hypoxic environment and physical stimulation. New emerging technologies, such as high throughput screening (HTS) or novel proteomic techniques will allow the identification of novel molecules with chondrogenic potential and a better characterisation of the TE construct. On the other hand, a consensus score system that allows direct comparison among different approaches is still needed.