New Zealand researcher using milk protein to help regrow human muscle
PhD student is also working biodegradable implants which don’t need surgery to be removed
Milk could be the key to helping regrow muscle and eventually body parts.
A PhD student at New Zealand’s Canterbury University is using milk protein to create biodegradable films with 3D imprints in the shape of muscle and bone cells on them in the hope they may influence the shape and growth of cells.
Azadeh Hashemi is focused on creating those films using casein - one of the two proteins found in milk - so they are biodegradable and would not need to be removed if used as an implant.
“The aim of my work is to replicate a 3D imprint of cells on to films made of milk protein, to use them as a substrate for growing cells. Development of the replication process and controlling the biodegradability of these films are the main parts of this work,” she says.
“The patterns on these biodegradable cell culture substrates mimic the cells’ natural physical environment and they can influence cell shape and growth. Once they have done their job, the films gradually degrade and leave the grown tissue behind.”
Hashemi, in collaboration with Canterbury University’s Dr Volker Nock and Dr Azam Ali at Otago University, had created the shapes with high resolution and managed to decrease the time taken for the film to degrade.
Nock said the early results were promising and Hashemi’s work took the research to the next level.