Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cells – Institute for …

The medical toolkit is incomplete. Doctors can prescribe medicines to decrease pain or lessen symptom severity. Surgeons can remove or bypass injured tissues. Patients can survive for years using pacemakers, insulin, and other methods for managing their conditions. However, people suffering from many injuries and illnesses face challenges because their bodies simply no longer function correctly, or due to genetic conditions, never did. Despite a centurys worth of progress, most available treatments do not restore the bodys ability to function on its own. Thats where regenerative medicine comes in.

Regenerative medicine will work differently. Using what we know about how cells and tissues develop, scientists, engineers, and clinicians are creating treatments that restore function by repairing, replacing, or rebuilding parts of the body. In some cases, this might entail boosting the bodys natural ability to heal itself using its own stem cell populations. In other cases, patients might receive treatment in the form of cells grown outside of the body that are transplanted to specific target organs. Going forward, it might even be possible to replace whole organs with new ones grown in the laboratory. Because they rely on restoring function, these treatments will be longer lasting than treatments that focus on symptoms only.

Originally posted here:
Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cells - Institute for ...