Newswise  LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (March 6, 2017)  Advanced    materials are revolutionizing our daily lives  from clothing    to clinics to  cattle?  
    A nanomaterial-based bone regeneration technology developed at    the University of Arkansas at Little Rock helped save a    valuable animals life. In the future, this technology could    help people suffering from a variety of severe injuries and    ailments.  
    Dr. Alexandru Biris, director of the UA Little Rock Center for    Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, led the development of    this technology, the NuCress scaffold, a temporary, implantable    filler for missing bone that encourages healthy bone    regeneration and is absorbed into the body.  
    In addition to its unique 3-D structure, the device can be    loaded with beneficial drugs, such as antibiotics to fight    infection or hormones and stem cells to encourage healing.  
    Biris began developing the device in 2005, initially intending    it for regeneration of small sections of bone, such as in the    human jaw. He believes the NuCress scaffold will, one day, be    an invaluable tool for repairing the kind of irregular,    complicated bone gaps often seen in victims of severe trauma    from wartime violence, car crashes, and bone disease.  
    For now, the scaffold is making a name for itself in Americas    heartland.  
    More than a decade ago, Biris started collaborating with Dr.    David Anderson, a veterinarian, and the pair have been refining    and developing the device ever since.  
    Anderson has conducted biomaterials and bone trauma research    since 1991 through his work at Kansas State and Ohio State    universities. Since 2012, he has been a professor and the head    of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of    Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. Anderson is an    internationally renowned expert in veterinary orthopedic    surgery, having given keynote addresses in more than a dozen    countries and published extensively on the subject.  
    Andersons position and reputation mean he is occasionally    called on to take his skills from the classroom to the    community.  
    Veterinary teaching hospitals exist for two main purposes. One    is to educate vet students, and the other is to serve the    community with advanced expertise in technologies, Anderson    said. If the primary veterinarian is not able to fix the    problem, they can send it to the tertiary care center at the    veterinary teaching hospital, where the equipment and expertise    is available to be able to deal with these types of complex    problems.  
    This is exactly what happened in 2010, when he was contacted by    a local veterinarian whose patient, a young bull in Kansas, had    a serious leg injury likely caused by a misplaced step in a    hole. While Anderson and his team were no strangers to    complicated animal injuries, this case was unique.  
    It was an open fracture that was very badly contaminated with    hair, dirt, manure, and debris. The bone was severely damaged,    Anderson said.  
    Not only was the injury severe, but the stakes were high  the    animal was no ordinary bovine.  
    The bull was an Angus breeding bull selected to add genetic    advancement for that herd. This was probably about a $20,000    bull. It would have been a total loss for the owner if the bull    was put down.  
    Initially, Anderson and his team put in an external skeletal    fixation system to stabilize the bone, hoping this would be    sufficient to heal the bull.  
    The bull, however, was not responding. The complexity and    contamination of the wound resulted in a bone break that simply    wouldnt heal. Infection had set in, conventional methods had    been exhausted, and the prize bull was running out of options.  
    We either had to do something dramatic or we would have to    euthanize the animal, Anderson said.  
    Not ready to give up, Anderson turned to his research with    Biris.  
    In previous studies, the pair had already shown that their    scaffold was effective for delivery of antibiotics. Though this    scaffold was smaller in size than what the bull would require,    Anderson decided to take a chance.  
    I called Alex  and I asked if he could make one for this bull    to see if we could try to control the infection and stimulate    the bone to heal more quickly, Anderson said.  
    Biris immediately went to work, scaling up the scaffold by    almost six times the original prototypes size.  
    The scaffold was loaded with antibiotics and implanted by    Andersons team inside the bulls fractured leg. Then they    waited, keeping their expectations low.  
    When the infection has progressed to that extent, it is    actually fairly uncommon to be able to reverse it, and most of    these animals with such infections end up being euthanized    because they are simply too big to survive with an amputated    limb, Anderson explained.  
    But the bull  and the scaffold  defied expectations. Not only    did the bone heal, but the infection was stopped in its tracks    and completely reversed.  
    These results, Anderson asserts, were astounding.  
    The bull returned to full function in his herd in a relatively    short amount of time at a fraction of the cost to the rancher    that replacement would have involved.  
    While this experience was not the first evidence of the    scaffolds usefulness, it reinforced its potential value.  
    There is no question that this is a product that has real    merit, Anderson said. It can change the way we do therapy and    can really improve outcomes for patients.  
    Today, UA Little Rock has patented the scaffold technology, and    Biris and his team received almost $10 million from the U.S.    Department of Defense to develop it further. The researchers    hope to bring the NuCress scaffold to clinical trial in the    next few years, but theyll always remember their first    successful patient  a prize bull from a ranch in the    heartland.
Here is the original post:
New bone regeneration technology has wide-ranging ... - Newswise - Newswise (press release)