UTSA researcher uses speaker foam to repair injured bones
(August 3, 2015) -- Say you fall and crack your head open, an ambulance takes you to the hospital and a group of doctors fill that hole in your skull with speaker foam? Well, soon that might be possible.
Teja Guda, an assistant professor of biomechanical engineering, and Joo L. Ong, chair and professor of biomedical engineering at UTSA, have been working on a product called scaffolding, which is meant to replace bone grafts as a treatment for people who have lost bone matter.
“It almost looks like a kitchen sponge,” Guda said. “The scaffold is 85 percent open space. The cells grow into it, and because we give them something solid to grow into, they start to regenerate tissue.”
Chemically, the scaffolding is made of the same ceramics that are found in bones.
“The idea is to mimic nature,” Guda said. “The body is what we want to duplicate, so why not literally duplicate the building blocks?”
The foam is, in fact, the same foam used in soundproofing and speakers, so it’s an actual building material being used to rebuild a part of the human body. It’s glazed in the same way ceramic pottery is glazed, except its ceramic putty has the same chemical makeup of human bones. It’s put into a furnace to harden the material.
“The big problem with glazed pottery is if you drop it, it cracks,” Guda said. “Now, in the fourth generation and thanks to a protein coating, the current generation of scaffolding is very much improved for performance, in that now it can chip but it won’t disintegrate.”
Scaffolding could replace bone grafts as a treatment, which is taking bone either from the patient’s body or from a cadaver. But cadaver bones have the risk of transmitting disease or not being compatible with the patient’s body.
“If the graft is taken from the patient’s body, the pain from that second injury is often more than the original injury,” said Guda. “There’s only so much you can scavenge from across the body. You don’t have a lot of spare bones lying around.”
Animal trials have been successful and the product is now undergoing further development abroad. Guda has also loaded drugs and antibiotics onto the scaffolding material so that doctors can skip that extra step while treating a patient.
--------------------------------------------
Learn more about biomedical engineering at UTSA.
Learn more about the College of Engineering.
Connect online with UTSA on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Events
This event will acknowledge graduating seniors from the McNair Scholars program at UTSA before inducting the new cohort of scholars into the program.
North Paseo Building (NPB 5.140), Main CampusAt this memorable celebration, UTSA graduates will be introduced one-by-one to cross the stage and accept their doctoral degrees.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusRoadrunner Walk is an event for graduating students to have a memorable walk on campus to celebrate an important milestone and their achievements. Graduates will walk along the Paseo while being celebrated by the UTSA community, friends, and family members.
Student Union Paseo, Main CampusCelebrate the accomplishments of College of Education and Human Development, College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Sciences and University College.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.Celebrate the accomplishments of Alvarez College of Business, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.