Regenerative Medicine Research Paper

Tissue engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses principles from engineering, biology and chemistry in an effort towards tissue regeneration. The main draw of tissue engineering is the regeneration of a patient’s own tissues and organs free from low biofunctionality and poor biocompatibility and serious immune rejection. As medical care continues to improve and life expectancy continues to grow, organ shortages become more problematic.(Manufacturing living things) According to organdonor.gov, a patient is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes and an average of 18 people die everyday waiting for an organ donation. The “nirvana” of tissue engineering is to replace the need for organ donation altogether. This could be achieved using scaffolding from

“Through the isolation and manipulation of cells, scientists are finding ways to identify young, regenerating ones that can be used to replace damaged of dead cells in diseased organs. This therapy is similar to the process of organ transplant, only the treatment consists of the transplantation of cells rather than organs. The cells that have shown by far the most promise of supplying diseased organs with healthy cells are called stem cells.” (Chapter Preface)

Embryonic stem cells are repairing damaged tissues in the body. Scientists have find a way to replace damage hearts. The United States heart failure affects more than 400,000 people a year. With the use of stem cells can be used to reconstruct the heart

Many of us have all heard the saying that a “lizard can lose its tail,” and bizarrely enough it will grow back. This was always considered impossible for humans, an idea belonging in the realm of science fiction, but now the regeneration of tissue is an extremely realistic possibility. Despite some opinions, this process does not happen naturally, or take place as cinematically as one might imagine. Over the past decade, there have been major advances in regenerative medicine, commonly known as stem cell research. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells within the body that have the capability to specialize into any tissue. They are most commonly found in cord blood, bone marrow, organ donations, placenta, and embryos . Stem cells are seen by some as a new miracle treatment, encouraging many countries to invest in their research.

Supporters of this argument assert that stem cell research can lead to discovering of many advanced cell-based treatments and have many medical applications. Stem cells can be cultured and transplanted into damaged body part for the regeneration of healthy tissue (Stöppler, 2014). Based on the some of the successful outcomes of the research, hematopoietic stem cell transplants (commonly known as a bone marrow transplant) are currently be used to treat patients with blood disorders and some solid tumours (Stem Cell Network, 2013). Hence, it is believed that, more life-saving treatments will be inventing in the near future with the

Around the globe, organ transplant waiting lists are overflowing with people who will never be able to receive the organs they need to survive. War veterans, accident victims, and those who have succumb to the loss of a limb from some other means endure a profoundly impaired quality of life. At the same time, several animal species are able to inconsequentially endure similar situations because of their remarkable inherent ability to fully regenerate many parts of their body. This ability to regenerate damaged or completely lost tissues and organs is greatly coveted by our species and has been the subject of scientific scrutiny for more than a century. Although the mechanisms responsible for this capability are being discovered and mapped at increasingly accelerated rates, much work is left to be done towards solidifying a thorough understanding of regeneration, let alone applying this knowledge to regenerative medicine.

Through the use of stem cells, a variety of different methods can be used to replace damaged cells in the human body with healthy ones. The first of these strategies is direct implantation of the cells. Stem cells can be injected straight into the organ that is affected or into the veins. This allows the stem cells to target the malfunctioning organ through the cytokines and chemokines it releases. Another strategy takes on a transplantation approach. That is, that the stem cells are specialized and harvested outside of the body before they are injected, or transplanted, into the diseased organ. Lastly, growth factors and drugs can be prescribed to

When these problems occur in a person's lifetime, stem-cell based therapies can be an opportunity to solve these tragedies in life. Treatments are found in the branch of regenerative medicine and have just recently been successfully tested-the first bone-marrow cell transplantation was performed in the year 1957-on live patients with cancer. These therapies are discussed in further detail in the"IIV Stem Cell Transplantation" chapter.

The goal of regenerative medicine is to restore function through therapy at levels such as the gene, cell, tissue, or organ. For stem cells, physicians will obtain a patient’s own stem cells by aspirating tissue from the patient’s hip bone or from their fat cells. These cells are centrifuged down to identify and separate specific primitive cells that will help heal tissues (Alessandri et al., 2004). For PRP, a patient’s own blood is used and centrifuged down to obtain healing growth factors and the platelets (Pantou et al., 2012). These are rich in protein to help stimulate healing. Once these products are obtained, doctors are able to re-introduce them into the patient’s injured tissues. Regeneration of tissues and ligaments have accomplished significant improvement in patient outcomes without surgical intervention.

A major goal of cardiac stem cell therapy is to transplant enough cells into the myocardium at the site of injury or infarction to maximize restoration of function. Several different approaches currently are being used to deliver stem cells. The intracoronary infusion involves the infusion of cells into a coronary artery, usually during a brief coronary occlusion produced by inflating a balloon at the tip of the catheter. This method of delivery offers several advantages: (1) it results in a much more uniform distribution of cells within the infarcted region, (2) it does not require specialized training or the purchase of specialized equipment, and (3) it is technically easier, more practical and widespread

stem cell state, just like the way in which iPSC’s are produced, but recent research has shown ways in which adult cell types in general could potentially be reprogrammed to other cell types in the laboratory (5). This means that if this process was perfected, not only will stem cells themselves be able to be reprogrammed, but eventually all cell types in the body. It is evident that this would be a major breakthrough for modern medicine and it is limitless on the impact it would make to current treatment methods and even many diseases and conditions. For example, after a portion of the heart experiences a heart attack, that area is then dead and can not be revived, but if reprogramming could be used on general cell types, this could change fibroblast in the scar tissue present into fully functional cardiac cells, reversing the damage done by the heart attack (4). This would be a major future implication if the process of reprogramming could potentially be mastered in general cell types (5).

Every year, the percentages of people around the world suffer from dysfunctional organs and organ failure caused by diseased and damaged tissue, this is increasing due to the rise of the aging population. Traumas and health issues such as strokes, heart attacks and joint problems can reduce the quality of someone’s life. Most current medicines are incapable of adequately repairing issues such as tissue and organ damage. This may be due to the problem that most medicines are made to prevent or to reduce further damage rather than repairing and regenerating the tissue all together. As an outcome, people suffering from these issues are left to live with damaged tissues which can lead to lower quality of life and throwing a lot of money on ongoing

Despite any potential healing power of stem cells, the moral and logistic issues that surround regenerative medicine needs to be addressed prior to the acceptance of this practice. One major issue that is continually

By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart failure, and other problems may be made curable by human cloning. (“Cloning to Save Lives”)

Tissue engineering has been an opportunity to restore the human condition from wounded to whole through the combination of biological, biochemical, and biomechanical concepts. Unlike traditional transplantation, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine uses a patient’s own cells to fabricate new tissues which are then grafted back into his or her body. Of course, the goal is to apply the practices in the lab to the general public and to develop a new and more effective means to treat patients with severe tissue loss and/or organ failure.