Objective Imagine the ability to grow your own joint replacement in your back. Most Europeans will suffer from arthritis or back pain which keeps them off work. 103 Million Europeans need an artificial replacement joint to regain their quality of life. These replacements are made of solid titanium or steel and have a finite life span so that revision surgery is mandatory. In 2004, we were the first group worldwide to grow a new mandible in the back of a cancer patient to replace his resected mandible. No other group has been able to perform a similar procedure yet.We plan to proceed and to grow an individually shaped Joint Like Organ (JLO) in the Latissimus muscle of patients with arthritis which can later be transplanted to replace the original joint. We will base this pioneering step on our experiences with the mandible procedure. The goal is to use the patient as the bioreactor to prevent the common problems of engineering tissue in vitro in the laboratory. The same technique could be used to grow more complex organs in the future when we conclusively prove that the patient can be his own bioreactor. Developing a JLO clearly lies outside most thematic priorities for FP 6 but seems related to priority1 "Life Sciences, Genomics and Biotechnology for health". However our application falls outside the two major fields of this thematic priority: Combating major diseases and Advanced genomics and applications for health.Our application concerns arthritic diseases which were not regarded a major disease in priority 1. Over 40 of the over 65s suffer from this affliction and without it their general health status would be similar to that of under 65s. This disease therefore deserves our attention. Our application does not involve genomics and it does not conform to biotechnology. Our vision is to develop a procedure where patients cultivate their own organs being their own bioreactor a move away from biotechnology towards tissue cultivation. Fields of science natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsengineering and technologyenvironmental biotechnologybioremediationbioreactorsmedical and health sciencesclinical medicinerheumatologymedical and health sciencesclinical medicinesurgerymedical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology Keywords joint organ replacement Programme(s) FP6-POLICIES - Policy support: Specific activities covering wider field of research under the Focusing and Integrating Community Research programme 2002-2006. Topic(s) NEST-2004-ADV - Adventure activities Call for proposal FP6-2004-NEST-C-1 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme STREP - Specific Targeted Research Project Coordinator UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN Address Brunswiker str 10 Kiel Germany See on map Links Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 0,00 Participants (7) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Netherlands EU contribution € 0,00 Address Mekelweg 2 Delft See on map Links Website Opens in new window DEMOKRITOS NATIONAL CENTER OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Greece EU contribution € 0,00 Address 153 10 agia paraskeul Athens See on map Links Website Opens in new window PLANTON GMBH Germany EU contribution € 0,00 Address Am kiel kanalstr 44 Holtenau, keil See on map Links Website Opens in new window PHYSIOLOGY LABORATORY OXFORD UNIVERSITY United Kingdom EU contribution € 0,00 Address Parks road Oxford See on map Links Website Opens in new window UNIVERSITY OF TROMSOE Norway EU contribution € 0,00 Address University of tromsoe tromsoe 9038 Tromsoe See on map Links Website Opens in new window MCP TOOLING TECHNOLOGIES LTD United Kingdom EU contribution € 0,00 Address Whitebridge way whitebridge park Stone See on map Links Website Opens in new window UNIVERSITY OF KEELE GREAT BRITAIN United Kingdom EU contribution € 0,00 Address Keele university Keele, staffordshire See on map Links Website Opens in new window
