Article on Growth Factors Dubbed Hot

An article by Assistant Professor Amy Wagoner Johnson and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was recently dubbed a hot paper by editors at Wiley InterScience Journals for its importance in the rapidly evolving field of biomechanics.

The article, published in Angewandte Chemie, describes how the authors synthesized modular peptide growth factors that mimic the ability of natural proteins to promote stem cell differentiation at specific locations in the body by binding to natural extracellular matrices such as bone. The synthesized growth factors not only bound strongly to hydroxyapatite (HA), a key biomineral component in the extracellular matrix of bony tissues and synthetic bone implants, but also promoted stem cell differentiation. Such molecular peptide molecules could be useful in clinical orthopedic applications, where the delivery of growth factor to biomaterials is an important strategy for bone regeneration. The novel approach could also provide physicians with a way to immobilize other biologically active molecules to HA or other clinically important biomaterials. Read the article.