I
have been conducting some research with a professor at the Columbia Medical
School of Orthopedics since last summer. Now that a year has passed, I thought
that I would share what I’ve been working on.
To
start off, orthopedic surgeons now use scaffolds to regenerate missing or
damaged parts of bones. They are essentially grafts that allow bone cells to
latch on to and proliferate throughout the structure, eventually regenerating
bone. Scaffolds come in different shapes and sizes as they are made to fill in
the missing parts of the skeleton. Moreover, the sizes of the pores that are
scattered throughout the scaffold can be adjusted.
My
research focused on finding the optimal size of the pores that would absorb
surrounding tissue most quickly. Although I have not come up with a definite
number, I found that the smaller the pores, the greater the proliferation rate
of the cells in the scaffold.
Although
scaffolds may seem like a boring and unimportant field of orthopedic research,
its potential in future medicine is enormous. Our current world is an aging
society, meaning that the average age of the world is gradually increasing.
This phenomenon leads to more cases of osteoporotic disabilities as the years
go by.
Since
scaffolds can be cheaply produced in any shape through 3-D printing, I believe
that further research concerning scaffolds can make it a key treatment method
in helping handicap with bone disorders.
