Understanding cell source and extracellular matrix contributions to cartilage and bone repair for regenerative medicine applications

Human skeletal elements are grossly divided into three main tissue categories: bone, cartilage and muscle. While skeletal muscle is closely associated and interacts with the bony element, this thesis focuses specifically on the repair mechanisms involved in bone and cartilage and how to better mediate these mechanisms from a regenerative medicine perspective; muscle will not be treated hereafter and any reference to skeletal tissue refers either to bone or cartilage. To begin, I will first define key concepts in skeletal tissue repair that give background to the regenerative strategies chosen during this thesis. Following this, I will introduce the concept of tissue engineering and the parameters that are necessary to take into account when preparing a living tissue graft. After this brief introduction, I will present the experimental work performed during this thesis in which the specific strategies employed towards skeletal tissue engineering are presented. Finally, I conclude with a summary of accomplishments and suggest further work that could be performed to help advance the presented topics towards a translational technology.