Cell-culture and polymer constructs

A surgical procedure wherein chondrocytes are taken from a patient and rapidly multiplied and transplanted into said patient for cartilage repair, comprising the steps of:

• 1) obtaining cartilage tissue from knee cartilage, nasal septal cartilage, ear cartilage or costo-chondral cartilage of a patient,
• 2) treating said cartilage to obtain chondrocytes therefrom,
• 3) culturing the chondrocytes to obtain an adequate sample of chondrocytes,
• 4) plating and growing the chondrocytes onto a scaffold, and
• 5) surgically implanting the chondrocyte bearing scaffold into said patient, wherein the entire surgical procedure is carried out expeditiously with good quality chondrocytes being returned to the patient and the scaffold being reabsorbed leaving in place viable chondrocytes, wherein the scaffold is prepared by crosslinking a polysaccharide with a polyamine, thereby forming a crosslinked polysaccharide derivative.