Water the roots - not the leaves

Vad Scientific LLC
Carboplasty

A novel stem cell approach to manage subchondral bone edema in knee osteoarthritis

Dr Vad questioned conventional microfracture routines used to apply stem cells into areas of cartilage loss by drilling, from inside the knee joint, down into the already compromised cartilage.  "As we water the roots of plants - not the leaves - shouldn’t cartilage instead be treated from the bottom up?  From the roots up?"   He asked, “Can you design and make prototypes to do that?"

 Our resulting novel device includes a hollow threaded shaft with outlet orifices interspersed along hardened cutting tip flutes.  The device is inserted through a small skin incision as an outpatient procedure.  A tri-lobular hand grip easily torques the threaded tip through hard cortical bone and then controllably guides the tip below the area of cartilage loss.  The grip is then removed, and a syringe attached to inject autologously derived stem cells through the device shaft into the targeted area from the bottom up.