Through a collaboration with the Wallace Coulter Foundation, Columbia Technology Ventures, and Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, we have begun characterizing the response of human chondrocytes to our functional tissue engineering paradigm. To date, we have successfully cultured human engineered cartilage constructs to near native properties, and generated functional responses that represent some of the best in the field. We have confirmed biocompatibility of these constructs through in vivo subcutaneous mouse study and are working towards attaining an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) for clinical studies.