Clemson’s Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute awarded assistant professors Dr. Jeremy Mercuri and Dr. Tong Ye a seed grant to determine the effectiveness of nonlinear optical microscopy to identify early degenerative damage to knee cartilage. Their labs will also determine the effectiveness of mesenchymal stem cells to promote knee cartilage health in patients undergoing surgical repair after injury.
Asked what they hope to accomplish, they said, “In general, we hope to demonstrate that the nonlinear optical imaging system can detect early changes in cartilage cells and extracellular matrix before the changes can be observed using other conventional techniques. Moreover, we hope to show that stem cells may be able to slow the progression of osteoarthritis when administered soon after the initial traumatic injury.”
If Mercuri and Ye accomplish their goals, they may be able to detect soft tissue injuries in patients’ knees (typically seen in adolescent athletes) and then treat prophylactically using biologic-based therapies (like stem cells) to delay the onset of osteoarthritis and thus improve patients’ quality of life. Using the nonlinear microscope, Mercuri and Ye recently found that autofluorescence from endogenous molecules of chondrocytes (the only cellular components in cartilage) can help identify if a cell is live or not.
They noted, “Previously, this information could be provided only by dye labeling. Combining with another nonlabeling imaging method, second harmonic generation imaging, we are able to record subtle structural and cellular changes that occur right after injury and to track the normal recovery or osteoarthritis progression due to the injury. This method can be potentially used on patients upon availability of an endomicroscopic system, which we are developing now.”
