Disc Degeneration Therapy

In the early stages of disk degeneration, there are still abundant cells in NP area, so we believe that non-cell based treatment, such as in vivo gene transfer or growth factor injection, is most suited to intervertebral therapy for minimally invasive treatment of early disk degeneration. But for the moderate stages of disk degeneration, most functional NP cells have already disappeared. So we think only gene delivery or growth factor injection is not enough because the NP cell, which is the target of gene therapy, is insufficient. Thus ex vivo approach will be better for the intermediate stages of disk degeneration. In the later stages of degeneration, the disk may be virtually nonexistent. Therefore, a tissue-engineered disk or artificial disk will be of great need.