Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative Medicine and the PCR Technique

By Ben Wooddell

Science is continuously evolving. Research into new and exciting fields reveals exciting new information on a daily basis. Since the very beginnings of science, science has always been helping mankind live longer and healthier lives. Every day scientists are still discovering new things, and sometimes these discoveries require doing things that stretch the boundaries of animal and human ethics, all for the greater good.

Since the ancient times humans have noticed and been amazed that some organs and organisms could appear to regenerate. As scientific principles became more know, interest increased. In 1712, a French scientist named René-Antoine did one of the first studies on the science

The first one is called rejuvenation and is the process by which your body heals itself. Cells in the body that scientists thought could never divide again, which includes special cells like the nerves, lungs and heart, have been shown to actually re-divide in some ways. This gives the organ the ability to self-heal at times, and scientists are studying ways to enhance the body’s self-healing process. The second way regenerative medicine works is by replacement. This involves replacing damaged organs using healthy, living cells, tissue or organs from a donor (which can be living or dead). Most people know this process as organ transplant, and even though it is slow, it is very effective and has saved many lives. So scientists want to find ways to expand opportunities for viable transplants by raising awareness of the value of organ donation. The last way regenerative medicine works is through a process called regeneration. This involves growing or putting live cells into a person so that the cell will divide and repair or re-grow tissue or even whole organs, on their own. An example of this is bone marrow transplants using stem cells, and involves cell-based therapy or the use of growth

Harvesting stem cells involves taking new stem cells from human embryos, which unfortunately leads to the embryo’s destruction. The incredible value of embryonic stems cells is their versatility – they have the ability to become any one of over 200 cell types in the human body and their use in repairing or regenerating tissue is incredible. The PCR method which is short for polymerase chain reaction. this is a method which is used to analyze a small parts of DNA (or RNA). PCR is used to replicate selected sections of DNA or RNA. Before the PCR method scientists had to use bigger sections of DNA and RNA with two vectors to replicate, it would also take weeks to work. But now, with PCR method done in test tubes, it takes only a few hours for it to work. PCR is highly efficient in that untold numbers of copies can be made of the