Thursday, 13 June 2019 11:54

iPSpine: New ways in intervertebral disc therapy Featured

In the EU project "iPSpine" (Induced pluripotent stem cell-based therapy for spinal regeneration) 20 international scientists want to find new and innovative ways of treating intervertebral disc diseases. A new medical product will be developed and tested. consisting of pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and intelligent biomaterials. For this purpose, the EU is providing 15 million euros as part of Horizon 2020.


After painkillers and physiotherapy are no longer effective, there is no therapy for a long-term healing of degenerated intervertebral discs at present. The last step is an invasive and costly surgery of the intervertebral discs. Chronic low back pain causes economic burdens of almost 240 billion euros per year in the EU.

That is why the iPSpine team wants to break new ground and develop a new medical device based on the use of pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and intelligent biomaterials that will later be injected into patients' degenerated intervertebral discs.

The iPSpine consortium consists of 20 partners in Europe, the United States and China. The project is coordinated by the University of Utrecht. The German project partners of "iPSpine" are the Institute of Orthopaedic Research and Biomechanics, University Hospital Ulm, led by professor Hans-Joachim Wilkewill, and the start-up SpinServ. They want to develop hardware and software to test the natural and artificial disc material.

At the end of the five-year project period, the results will be available from a proof-of-concept study.

Sources:
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/219923/factsheet/en
http://www.ipspine.eu
https://www.innovations-report.de/
https://www.catalyze.nl/2019/02/13/ipspine-kickoff/