Ghent University and Cryo-Save’s collaboration overcomes the restrictions encountered in bone tissue engineering of large size bone grafts. This traditional tissue engineering (TE) is often limited to the outside region resulting in a localized, non-uniform tissue formation. For the present study, Cryo-Save provided cryopreserved stem cells that show promising results to obtain a uniform cell distribution and a high cell density in the centre of bone grafts. This will improve bone deficit treatments for large size bone grafts.
Cryo-Save, Europe’s leading family stem cell bank, participated in a high-level tissue engineering study, headed by Dr. Heidi A. Declercq, PhD and her team from Ghent University (group leader, Prof. Dr. M. Cornelissen), Belgium, on new practices to build artificial bone tissue with stem cells. Close collaboration between Cryo-Save and Ghent University led the company to manufacture and provide cryopreserved stem cells derived from adipose tissue (ADSC) for the study. The article “Bone grafts engineered from human adipose-derived stem cells in dynamic 3D-environments” was recently published in Biomaterials, one of the most widely read and influential scientific journal in the field of Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials.
Thanks to the work of Dr. Declercq, modular tissue engineering offers an innovative way to create large bone grafts obtained with ADSC-seeded on microcarriers in a bottom-up approach. The strategy aims to engineer small volume, high-quality microtissues and the subsequent assembly in-vitro or in-vivo into larger tissue constructs upon implantation. In this study, ADSC-seeded microcarriers were exploited to prepare modular tissues (microtissues) as building blocks followed by self-assembling into macrotissues in-vitro. As a result, Dr. Declercq demonstrated that ADSC are as good as bone marrow in bone tissue engineering application revealing similar morphology, calcification level and osteogenic genes expression but the use of ADSC can substitute the painful collection of bone marrow stem cells.
The outcomes of the study are very promising for treatment of bone deficits. Dr. Declercq sees great hopes in bone tissue engineering and says: “Modular tissue engineering is a promising approach to create large bone grafts as it encounters most of the limits in traditional tissue engineering. Moreover, the combination of adipose-derived stem cells in this bottom-up approach is excellent because adiposederived stem cells are a great source for tissue engineering purposes. A high amount of cells with high proliferation and differentiation capacity can be obtained from abundant adipose tissue sources”.

Cryo-Save is thrilled to have played a major role by providing cryopreserved ADSC for use in this study. It is an integral part of Cryo-Save’s activities to support research and to collaborate with leading universities, physicians and stem cell scientists, with the aim to improve clinical applications.