To grow new knee cartilage, look to the nose

Patches grown from nasal tissue perform well in tests in goats

Cartilage-making cells in the nose seem to produce a worthy stand-in for the cartilage lost at the tips of bones in damaged knee joints, a study in goats suggests.

Patches of cartilage grown from snippets of nasal tissue worked so well when implanted into the goats that a small group of people with knee injuries have now undergone the treatment with their own nasal cartilage, researchers report August 27 in Science Translational Medicine.