Unlike almost all medical practices involved in regenerative medicine, Regenexx and it’s network benefit from an ongoing active Regenexx research program to continue to improve what we can offer patients. One of those projects is a knee stem cell research project which involves observing the micro environment of the knee. Think of it as a sophisticated modern farmer who has the soil tested before he plants the seeds to maximize crop yield. In the same way, we have an ongoing study to look at the “Soil” (the conditions inside an arthritic knee) to check if it’s good, bad, or neutral toward stem cell and cartilage growth.
Doing that project with traditional ELISA technology that can detect certain cytokines in the patient’s synovial fluid is time consuming and difficult. Hence, we just purchased and installed a Multiplex Microarray ELISA. This little sexy instrument (picture above) can detect many different cytokines and growth factors at once using very low sample volumes at a very wide range of concentrations (from super low to super high). What she lacks in curves, she makes up for in complexity and sensitivity! That machine is sandwiched between a FACS cell sorter on the left and a PCR machine on the right (devices to sort cells of different types and to detect the genetic make up or gene expression in cells).
