Gristleball - University of Exeter Images of Research Submission

This photograph shows a sphere of cartilage cells grown in our lab. The cells are stained for a biomarker of cellular ageing in red and for their control centre nucleus in blue, and are imaged using a fluorescence microscope. We developed this 3D cell model to be completely free of animal-derived biomaterial to improve how relevant any future experiments’ results are to human medicine. We research ageing because the cellular processes that underpin ageing also underpin many age-related diseases, e.g. osteoarthritis, neurodegenerative disease and cardiovascular disease. We are growing cartilage in the lab so that we can test if any drugs reduce the “age” of the cells. This research could be useful particularly in the context of bone health as people age.

Research by Dr Laura Sinclair