Scientific American has named a University of Virginia musculoskeletal regeneration expert as one of its SciAm 50 for 2007.

Dr. Cato T. Laurencin is one of the 50 people or teams given the magazine's honor, which recognizes people who are shaping new and old technologies. The researcher and his team published a paper last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describing the creation of an anterior cruciate ligament for small animals such as rabbits using adult stem cells.

Laurencin is a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering and the Lillian T. Pratt distinguished professor and chairman of orthopaedic surgery. He has spent more than 20 years researching tissue engineering.

"We're very hopeful that this new matrix technology will be able to alleviate the suffering in those individuals who have ACL tears," Laurencin said.

Laurencin and his team developed a special weaving technique to re-create an ACL with materials grown from adult stem cells. Laurencin said his team will spend this year creating ligaments for larger animals, such as goats and sheep. The researcher hopes to create replacement tissues for humans in the future.
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