Catering to chondrocytes

Abstract

In 1743, William Hunter complained that “ulcerated cartilage is universally allowed to be a very troublesome disease…that, when destroyed, it is never recovered” (1). Fast forward 275 years and nothing much has changed: Cartilage still does not regenerate and osteoarthritis (OA), the main cause of cartilage degeneration, is rampant. In this issue of Science TranslationalMedicine, Geiger etal. (2) describe a novel technology that offers considerable promise for reversing this miserable state of affairs.