In Dr Koch's lab we focus on regenerative therapies and their applications to veterinary medicine. In this photo you can see my first successful cartilage disc! Cartilage discs are produced using mesenchymal stromal cells harvested from equine umbilical cord blood. The population of cells is provided with very specific conditions that allow them to differentiate into cartilage. After 3 weeks this was our result!
In this project we wanted to determine how the immune system would react to cartilage tissue that was harvested in the laboratory. We hope that with minimal foreign body reaction these cartilage discs could one day be used to repair cartilage defects which is a common problem in horses.
