On May 21st, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology announced the winners of Bio-Art, its first biomedical image competition. Among the winners were Frank Moutos and Farshid Guilak, of Duke University Medical Center and members the Biomedical Engineering Society, who submitted the image, above, of a three-dimensionally woven biomaterial scaffold used to accelerate the growth and repair of cartilage.

Due to a lack of blood vessels and other characteristics, cartilage heals very slowly. One way to accelerate natural cartilage repair and growth is to use tissue engineering, or the artificially-stimulated production of functional replacement tissue. The image shows a three-dimensionally woven biomaterial scaffold. The scaffold consists of multiple layers of resorbable fiber bundles that have been woven into a porous structure. The scaffold is then seeded with cells that grow to become new tissue as the fibers are resorbed. The fibers provide stiffness and strength in a manner that mimics native collagenous tissues such as cartilage. This work to use tissue engineering to generate replacement cartilage is supported by NIH funding from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

All winning entries afe featured on FASEB’s web site. They were also displayed during FASEB’s May 16th centennial reception on Capitol Hill, and were featured in an exhibit on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus.

The competition drew entries from research institutions and scientific organizations across the country. Entrants, who were required to be either current or former NIH grantees or members of a FASEB constituent society, were asked to submit their most breathtaking laboratory-based images and illustrations depicting the cutting edge of 21st century biomedical research.

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