What is regenerative medicine?
Part of the human body is the ability to heal itself when injured or sick. It's a cycle that works on its own, but there are some things that the body can't come back from, like seriously damaging skin tissue or suffering from spina bifida (a birth defect). Regenerative medicine is an area of science that aims to develop a way to fix these issues by using your own body's living cells. Growing tissues and organs in a lab is becoming possible, thanks to this area of medical engineering. Living cell therapy is a way to improve the quality of life for those patients suffering from illnesses or conditions that the body can't recover from on it's own. Leland Kaiser is widely thought to be the first to coin this method of medical engineering using the term regenerative medicine in his paper on the effect technology has on hospitals.
Medical engineering procedures like regenerative medicine have the potential to improve the quality of life for these patients immensely. There are different types of regenerative medicine, each looking to impact a certain part of the body's healing process. One example that's making its way into the medical field is using heparin sulfate analogues to help wounds heal themselves. One example would be during the hernia repair process. Using a living cell, therapy & medical engineering procedures will help the body close the gaps in the healing process.
What are the benefits of regenerative medicine?
While this method of medical engineering is controversial, the benefits are undeniable. No matter what problems with stem cells and the need to research a stem cell that groups and organizations have, the science does have the potential to help patients all over the world suffering from wounds or damaged organs. Regenerative medicine is more than just "playing God", which is the argument against the practice that many make. Looking at the benefits and the ability to improve the quality of life for the patients tells a different story.
Heart valves have been grown in a lab using regenerative medicine and medical engineering, which can save a ton of lives. Through living cell therapy, a child suffering from leukemia can have access to his or her own healthy blood cells to bring the blood count back up. Regenerative medicine can do that, using an umbilical cord. These are only two examples but regenerative medicine is doing a lot in research and trials, working to improve the quality of or even save lives.
Before dismissing regenerative medicine, consider the benefits. Supporting this area of medical engineering means supporting a patient's right to a higher quality of life.