25/02/2022
SOUND WAVES HELP TO REGROW BONES
Researchers have used sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells, in a tissue engineering advance that could one day help patients regrow bone lost to cancer or other degenerative disease.
Tissue engineering is an emerging field that aims to rebuild bone and muscle by harnessing the human body’s natural ability to heal itself.
In a new study, researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, showed that stem cells treated with high-frequency sound waves turned into bone cells quickly and efficiently. Importantly, the treatment was effective on multiple types of cells including fat-derived stem cells, which are far less painful to extract from a patient.
The high-frequency sound waves used in the treatment were generated on a low-cost microchip device developed by RMIT and the method doesn’t require any special ‘bone-inducing’ drugs.
Distinguished Professor Leslie Yeo and his team have spent over a decade researching the interaction of sound waves at frequencies above 10 MHz with different materials. The sound wave-generating device they developed can be used to precisely manipulate cells, fluids or materials.
“We can use the sound waves to apply just the right amount of pressure in the right places to the stem cells, to trigger the change process,” Professor Yeo says. “Our device is cheap and simple to use, so could be easily upscaled for treating large numbers of cells simultaneously - vital for effective tissue engineering.”
(The research was published in the journal ‘Small’.)
