Regenerative medicine is a new and quickly developing field in medical research. Regenerative medicine researchers use stem cells, scaffolds, and growth factors to make new tissues and organs to replace those that have been damaged by illness or injury.
Although the human body has the wonderful (and essential!) ability to heal on its own, sometimes injuries or disease can overwhelm these natural defenses. Using regenerative medicine, doctors can intervene and help patients heal faster by using stem cells to regrow damaged tissue.
New treatments involving regenerative medicine will one day help people heal in weeks instead of months. Some people will get new treatments that cure them forever, improving and even saving their lives!
“Our Cells, Our Selves” is a science bedtime story about Sylvie, a 7-year-old girl with diabetes. Learn more about diabetes and the immune system.
Right now, Sylvie can receive much help from modern medicine, such as insulin shots. But doctors today can only help the symptoms of diabetes.To cure her diabetes, Sylvie would need to get a whole new bunch of pancreatic cells. Currently, this means waiting for a transplanted pancreas from an organ donor. The waiting lists for these organs are, unfortunately, often too long to help the recipient. Also, transplants carry the risk that Sylvie’s body could reject the pancreas. With regenerative medicine, the dream is that new insulin-making cells, or even an entire new pancreas, could be grown in the lab from cells taken from Sylvie’s own body!
Scientists and doctors are already using regenerative medicine to treat injuries and diseases of the heart and bones, as well as diabetes.
The body’s natural healing takes place at all levels—from organs, to tissues, to individual cells. Some of those cells, called stem cells, can create all kinds of new tissues. This property is what makes them so useful in regenerative medicine. With support from structures called scaffolds, stem cell therapies have the potential to treat the following conditions and more:
- Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases
- Spinal cord injury
- Stroke
- Burns
- Heart disease
- Type 1 diabetes
- Arthritis
- Muscular dystrophies
- Liver disease
- Even blindness might one day be cured, using stem cells to regenerate the eye’s retina.
Where natural healing ends, regenerative medicine takes over!
Learn more about regenerative medicine:
- What is the difference between cells, tissues and organs?
- What are stem cells and where do they come from?
- The natural healing process
- What is the role of scaffolds?
- The future of regenerative medicine
