The Pros And Cons Of Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative Medicine

“A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind,” (Albert Szent-Gyorgyi). Scientific discoveries have consistently been remarkable feats preformed by ingenious people for the great of mankind. Some of these discoveries almost sound like excerpts from comic books or fictional movies. Take the most recent Spiderman movies for instance; in the first movie of series, Peter Parker encounters a mad scientist Dr. Curt Connors, who has discovered a way to genetically encrypt lizards’ DNA to human DNA, allowing humans to regrow or regenerate arms, limbs, organs, and any other damage bodily tissue as lizards do. All of this seems a little far-fetched however; the concept of humans regenerating damaged bodily tissues

However, Amulya K. Saxena the author of the article “Tissue engineering: Presents concepts and strategies,” states, “The advantage of this method is that it allows the graft to cover extremely large wounds; a disadvantage, however, is that 3-4 weeks are required for cell expansion.” Unfortunately until the cells fully expand and create new ones the victim must be in critical care. A more recent discovery involving stem cells has shown to be more promising, the Skin-cell Gun method. Essentially the Skin-cell gun shares the same concept as the skin graft, but without the long process of the graft’s forming, expansion, and the recovery rate, this process takes up to one to two hours to complete and its recovery time takes days rather than weeks. The process of the Skin-cell gun is simple, “a biopsy is taken from the patient’s undamaged skin and then healthy stem cells are isolated from the biopsy and an aqueous solution containing the cells is sprayed on the burn,” (Edwards). This treatment is a great alternative for burn victims, however, where it is advance in recovery time it lacks in depth. As of right now this treatment may only be used for first and second-degree burn injuries. However, there is still hope for those who suffer from third degree burns, researchers are in the process coming up with a more in depth stem cell solution for the Skin-cell gun to treat third

Regenerative medicine has even shown signs of repairing neuron structures such as the spinal cord. Such signs have been found in a case from Korea, and excerpt from an article released by the “Institute of Science in Society,” states, “A patient who could not stand up for the past 19 years is now walking after stem cells isolated from umbilical cord blood were injected into the damaged areas of her spine.” After the treatment the 37-year-old woman was able to walk within a month. Treatments like this, give hope for those who suffer from paralysis, and for those who have any sort of nerve