Making an impact. . .

The primary focus of Professor Detamore’s Tissue Engineering Laboratory is the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), commonly known as the jaw joint. People with disorders of the TMJ can have minor problems such as clicking noises from a displaced disc. Unfortunately, in more severe cases, everyday things most people take for granted like chewing or talking become agonizing and painful. Something as simple as a yawn before bedtime can cause excruciating pain.

While there are several possible reasons for TMJ problems (arthritis, trauma, internal derangement, ankylosis, tumors, etc.), the joint is not able to heal itself and regenerate lost tissue. Our group endeavors to address this problem with tissue engineering. In particular, our tissue engineering efforts are focused on the mandibular condyle, comprised of bone and cartilage. Our strategies include investigation of cell sources, cell co-culture, scaffold design, bioreactor design, and novel cell signaling combinations. Moreover, we are examining the biomechanics of the condylar cartilage in an effort to reveal future tissue engineering strategies.

Students in the Tissue Engineering Laboratory use a variety of techniques, including sterile technique and cell culture, biomechanical testing, histology, immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), biochemical testing, and electron microscopy. Collaborations exist both inside and outside the Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department at KU, at the dental school in nearby Kansas City, and beyond. Thanks for visiting our site. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us, we would like to hear from you!

General Interests

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ), which is the jaw joint, is the central theme of our research. We are interested in understanding the biomechanical behavior of the TMJ, from the standpoints of both tissue biomechanics and joint motion biomechanics. However, tissue engineering is the primary objective of our group, and the focus of our tissue engineering efforts is the condyle of the mandible. Funding sources include the Arthritis Foundation and NIH.

Pictured on Right: Construct fabrication techniques such as CO2 Melding (pictured), allows our lab to create customized shapes for virtually any application. These shapes can then be used as temporary "housing" for cells to divide, and tissue to grow.

Tissue Engineering

We are interested in examining the effects of chemical signals, including chondrogenic agents and osteogenic agents, on cells from the mandibular condyle. Furthermore, we are interested in understanding how these different cell types influence each other at the osteochondral interface in engineered constructs. Tissue engineering efforts are also focused on scaffold selection, comparing natural and synthetic polymers, and on development of a direct-perfusion bioreactor for larger-scale constructs, where passive diffusion of nutrients and waste products becomes a limiting factor.

Pictured on Left: Calcein AM fluorescence stain for live and dead Human Umbilical Cord Matrix Stem Cells (hUCMSCs). Green = Live Cells.

TMJ Biomechanics

Our focus is to elucidate the anisotropic and viscoelastic nature of condylar cartilage under tension and compression. This work will provide a tool for us to help find a place for this cartilage in the cartilage spectrum, which spans from the elastic cartilages of the ear and nose to the fibrocartilaginous TMJ disc and knee meniscus to hyaline cartilage of the knee and hip. Biomechanical testing of condylar cartilage will be performed under both compression and tension. In addition, we are interested in the compressive behavior of the condyle bone tissue.

Pictured on Right: Experimental data for tensile testing of condylar cartilage compared to variants of the Kelvin model.