Machine to make tendons

Scientists have developed a machine that could grow tendons and ligaments outside body.

A team of researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a machine that could grow tendons and ligaments outside the human body.

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According to The Straits Times, the researchers have created a machine that will eventually produce lab-grown grafts that can be implanted in patients.

To create the tendons, a flexible scaffold will have to be woven out of a porous biodegradable material and seeded with about a million stem cells.

When the sheet is attached to the machine, the stem cells on the scaffold start elongating, and turning into the tendon and ligament cells.

However, the machine is still at an experimental stage and needs to be tested on animals first "We will need to grow several batches and stop the machine at different time points to find out when they become strong enough. No point if they snap again after implant, right?" said the associate Professor James Goh, one of the creators of the machine.