Researchers at Columbia have figured out a way to regenerate the meniscus (the cushion in the joint) in a knee joint. According to press release by the university, Jeremy Mao, DDS, PhD and his study team figured out a way to cause the body to rebuild the meniscus by scanning the actual shape of the undamaged meniscus in an intact knee joint, 3D printing a biodegenerative scaffolding in the shape of the meniscus, injecting the scaffolding with human growth factors, implanting the scaffolding into a joint and prompting the body to generate a new meniscus in the shape of the scaffolding using the injected human growth factors. The result is an custom grown meniscus by the patient's body. Well, technically in the study, by the sheep's body. You can see the location of the meniscus in the diagram of a human knee joint to the left.
What an elegant way to repair a joint that the body won't reject!
So what kind of intellectual property do they (either Mao et al., or Columbia) have?
- potential patentability of the process of designing and printing a custom scaffolding for a meniscus
- potential patentability of the meniscus scaffolding itself
- potential patentability of the method of inducing generation of a new meniscus (rather than generating it outside the body)
- potential trade secrets (I don't know what they are . . . ) to the extent not disclosed in a patent application
- copyright in the published article
- copyright in the data/drawings used to create the scaffolding
You can read more about the experiment at ScienceDaily.
Below is a video of the scaffolding being 3D printed.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
