MEFISTO has just held its final review meeting with representatives of the European Commission. The project was congratulated by the EC representatives for its achievements. In the final phase, novel coating technologies were used to functionalise resorbable and non-resorbable meniscal implants. These implants were then tested in vivo in partial meniscectomy models.
The resorbable collagen scaffold produced by Geistlich and functionalised by Tissue Click was tested by the team at the University Hospital of Regensburg. Meanwhile, non-resorbable meniscus implants from Active Implants and ATRO Medical BV, functionalised by Tissue Click and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, were tested by the Humanitas University team.
Analysis of joint tissues and explanted devices suggests that Tissue Click's biomimetic nanostructured coating may provide protection to articular cartilage following meniscectomy. In addition, this coating technology has been shown to be both easily applied to meniscal devices and sterilisable.
Read our publishable summary for more insight into our achievements and stay tuned for further updates and publications on the exciting results of this collaboration!
A recent MEFISTO publication (https://doi.org/10.1002/jeo2.12090) in the Journal of Experimental Orthopaedics under the lead of University of Antwerp is providing novel insights into why patients develop Post medial meniscectomy syndrome. This study was a joint effort of the University of Antwerp, Active Implants, Humanitas University and the University of Regensburg.
This study investigates the differences in tibiofemoral joint morphology between 120 patients who responded well to arthroscopic partial medial meniscectomy (APMM) and 120 patients experiencing recurrent pain two years post-surgery (medial postmeniscectomy syndrome, MPMS). Antwerp also developed a morphology-based predictive algorithm for treatment response.
Key findings:
- Patients with recurrent pain had significantly smaller knees, a wider femoral notch, and a smaller medial femoral condyle.
- Our predictive model demonstrated impressive accuracy in identifying medial postmeniscectomy syndrome (MPMS) at two years post-surgery. With shape as the sole predictor variable, the model achieved a sensitivity of 74.9% and a specificity of 81.0% in an internal cross-validation experiment.
These insights pave the way for a future morphology-based clinical decision support tool, aiding the clinician to further optimize patient selection in a data-driven way.
The MEFISTO consortium met for the 3rd Review Meeting in the Hubrecht Institute, Developmental Biology and Stem Cell Research Institute in Utrecht. The project is nearing its end and the partners presented their work to EC representatives.
Final resorbable and non-resorbable bioactive meniscal implants are ready for preclinical testing, a morphology-based predictive treatment algorithm for meniscectomy patients has been developed, and a preliminary health-economic analysis has been performed.
Anna Abbaddessa from University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) presented a poster on cartilage 3D printing at TERMIS2024 in Seattle. The work presented was a joint effort of USC and 3 other MEFISTO partners, namely University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), Institute of Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials, National Research Council (IPCB-CNR) and Geistlich Pharma AG.
MEFISTO will be represented at the annual Isokinetic Conference #isoK24, the landmark event of football medicine that will take place at the Madrid Civitas Metropolitano Stadium on 25-25 May 2024.
Congratulations to the MEFISTO partners CNR, Geistlich and UHREG on a great team work that resulted in a publication in Heliyon on Development of a highly concentrated collagen ink for the creation of a 3D printed meniscus.
Further publications are in the pipeline... stay tuned
MEFISTO is featured in "Horizon - The European research and innovation magazine" with the article "The quest to bring osteoarthritis to its knees".
Millions of people in Europe and elsewhere suffer degeneration of joint cartilage in the knee, driving EU research into better treatments. MEFISTO is part of this endeavour!
Enjoy reading!
We are pleased to announce an important MEFISTO publication: Our article "Biofunctionalization of 3D printed collagen with bevacizumab-loaded microparticles targeting pathological angiogenesis" has just been published in the Journal of Controlled Release.
Highlights of this publication include the following:
- Release of bevacizumab from PLGA microparticles can be controlled.
- Degradation of bevacizumab during in vitro release was observed.
- Bevacizumab-loaded microparticles reduce angiogenesis in a 3D cellular model.
- Complex biomimicking structures by 3D printing microparticles-loaded collagen.
This work involved 4 MEFISTO partners: The University of Santiago de Compostela, the UMC Utrecht, the Consiglio Nationale delle Ricerche Napoli and Geistlich Pharma joined forces for this great result.
Enjoy reading!
Want to learn more about orthoregeneration? In this podcast episode from ON, the orthoregeneration network, Elizaveta Kon (partner HUNIMED) and Jari Dahmen (Amsterdam UMC) talk about the MEFISTO Project and treating damage to the meniscus in the future.
The MEFISTO Session at ICRS today was a productive exchange with 3 presentations focusing on:
The presentations were followed by a very interesting round table discussion.
Come learn more about prevention and prediction of Post-Meniscectomy OA at of the MEFISTO workshop that will be held on Thursday, 27 April at the ICRS Nice Focus meeting. This event will give you the opportunity to discuss with three of MEFISTO's researchers Elizaveta Kon from HUNIMED, Mylene De Ruiiter from UMCU and Peter Verdonk from UAntwerpen.
We are just back from our 8th consortium meeting in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. As always it was nice to meet and discuss the project progress. This time the focus laid on planning of the final year during which we strive to validate novel solutions to treat meniscus loss in vitro and in vivo.
In an extended lab tour of the Center for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases (CIMUS) we had the chance to visit the impressing infrastructure of the center, from massive high-throughput screening via animal testing to nuclear medicine.
We also learned a lot about the nature, culture and cuisine of our host country Galicia and Santiago de Compostela. Thanks again for everything to Maria José Alonso and your team!
Many thanks to Active Implants for a very fruitful meeting that allowed us to combine necessary discussions on how to shape further project time with insights into their interesting company history and latest achievements.
Insights into the innovation mecca of Tel-Aviv rounded off our visit, not to mention the rich sights and culinary delights of the region that we were able to enjoy. Thank you so much, Active Implants!
The MEFISTO project was presented at The Meniscus Congress in Luxembourg taking place from 7-9 July 2022: www.the-meniscus.org
On Thursday Jonas Grammens presented on 'Can identification of bone morphology help us predict the future of the knee?'
In the afternoon Elizaveta Kon announced the educational meniscus discovery series: 'All you need to know about meniscus'.
On Friday, she also introduced the MEFISTO project to the audience and provided an excellent overview and current status of the project in her talk 'New frontiers on meniscal regeneration: The MEFISTO European Project'
Another great opportunity to inform stakeholders about the project and increase the visibility of MEFISTO!
To learn more about the MEFISTO Meniscus Discovery series, new technologies for Meniscal regeneration and predictive performance, follow us on @MEFISTO_H2020 and our website.
MEFISTO strongly represented at the 20th ESSKA Congress, 27-29 April 2022 in Paris! In a dedicated session from 13h45 to 14.35 on 29 April 5 MEFISTO researchers will present:
- 13.45 CEST: All you need to know about meniscus: Meniscus Discovery series - Elizaveta Kon, Italy
- 13.55 CEST: Meniscal preservation possible? ortobiologics - Berardo Di Matteo, Italy
- 14.05 CEST: Meniscal repair- the future - Pablo Gelber, Spain
- 14.15 CEST: New technologies for Meniscal regeneration: Mefisto approach - Jos Malda, the Netherlands
- 14.25 CEST: Do we know the future? - Jonas Grammens, Belgium
At the ICRS congress in Berlin also MEFISTO researchers from Regensburg, Antwerpen and Utrecht presented today: While Girish Pattappa from the university hospital Regensburg presented "Meniscus: Future developments from a cellular and molecular perspective", Riccardo Levato (photo) from Utrecht university hospital focussed on "New Technologies for Meniscal Regeneration: The Mefisto Approach" and Jonas Grammens from Antwerp university hospital imagines "How to predict the future -Morphological Profiling".
The MEFISTO project – and especially the Meniscus Discovery Series – were presented in a special session at the 16th ICRS World congress by MEFISTO scientific Coordinator Elizaveta Kon today. We are also proud to announce that Prof. Kon has been nominated as incoming ICRS President.
The 'Meniscus Discovery Series – episode 1 ' is the first in a series of documentaries on the meniscus. It contains interviews, animations, patient stories etc. The series is aimed to address young orthopedic surgeons & residents. It has been created with the support of the MEFISTO project.
Watch the trailer:
See the full episode:
We are pleased to announce that a MEFISTO publication, "Therapeutic Manipulation of Macrophages Using Nanotechnological Approaches for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis" by Aldo Ummarino, Francesco Manlio Gambaro, Elizaveta Kon and Fernando Torres Andón from Universidade de Santiago de Compostela and Humanitas university Milan has been nominated for the “Nanomaterials 2022 Best Paper Award"!
Please widely share this information to further promote the publication!
After a break of 2 years due to the pandemic, we were finally able to meet again in person on 16-17 March 2022. We all appreciated the direct professional discussions, updates, and plans for the next months. Of course we also enjoyed good food and drink, personal conversations and the sights of bella Napoli!
Our external project advisor Vincenzo Condello presented MEFISTO in his talk on 'Meniscal scaffold: new perspectives vs traditional techniques' at the 1st SIAGASCOT Annual Meeting.
Discover this new publication from the UHREG team on isolation of meniscus progenitor using differential fibronectin adhesion and physioxia in the January edition of @FrontBioeng.
Four MEFISTO researchers, Elizaveta Kon (HUNIMED), Girish Pattappa (UHREG), Jonas Grammens (UAntwerpen) and Riccardo Levato (UMCU) are presenting at the 29th Annual Meeting of the European Orthopaedic Research Society.
The MEFISTO project held its 4th consortium meeting on 2 and 3 December 2020. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the meeting was conducted on-line with over 30 participants from all 13 project partners.
Despite limited access to laboratory facilities for the most part of 2020, significant progress has been made on key project deliverables: standard operating procedures for in vitro tests are now established, the 3D database of high-precision knee models after meniscus removal surgery is nearing completion, several resorbable and non-resorbable meniscus device concepts are currently being evaluated and components for the biofunctionalisation of the devices are under development.
To date, 7 publications have been published in scientific journals. They are all openly accessible and the full list of links is available on the MEFISTO website at https://www.mefisto-project.eu/outcomes/.
Congratulation to Francesco Gambaro for winning the first prize of the Virgilio "Communicating Science" project of Humanitas University with this video aiming at presenting the MEFISTO project to a general public audience.
Join Dr. Peter Angele online for a Live interview organized by the ON Foundation together with Dr. Philip Roessler. The interview will take place on Tuesday, 28th April 2020 from 18:00 CET and it will be live streamed on Facebook Live.
You can find updates and more information on the ON Foundation`s Facebook page
.
Two members of the MEFISTO team will present at the ONstage event. The event focusses on orthopedic tissue regeneration. It will take place in Dübendorf near Zurich, Switzerland on 18 October 2019.
Driving meniscus health forward
Driving meniscus health forward