Regenerative Medicine

• Tissue engineering and stem cell research are areas of regenerative medicine
• Major ethical issues regarding embryonic research includes: human embryo use, embryo donation, medical risks of oocyte retrieval, commercialisation of oocytes, somatic cell nuclear transfer, use of fetal tissue after abortion, risks and implications of clinical trials and designer babies
• Tissue engineering: regenerative medicine that uses stem cells to create living tissues to replace artificial implantations and encourage self-healing medicine
• Tissue engineering can use pluripotent cells, embryonic cells and induced pluripotent cells
• Stem cells produce new cells to heal and replace sick and damaged cells in the human body
• Induced pluripotent cells: regular cells manipulated to act and grow as embryonic cells
• Immunosuppressants are required to prevent the body from rejecting cells implanted from a foreign body, putting a patient at further risk for general illnesses
• Tissue engineering has so far grown a bio-artificial liver device, artificial pancreas, cartilage, blood vessels, artificial skin, artificial bone and bone marrow, epithelial lining
• Tissue engineering begins with the design and fabrication of cells, then the cultivation and scaffolding of cells, then the introduction of environmental factors, and finally, implantation
• Tissue engineering utilises living cells as engineering tools to create biological material to address injury and illness, e.g. burns, leukaemia, etc.
• Autologus Transplant = material taken from self
• Allogenic Transplant = material taken from another human
• Xenogenic Transplant = material taken from an animal and recieved by a human
• Isogenic Transplant = material taken from a genetically identical partner (most often a twin)
• The pros of tissue engineering include faster recovery, longer life expectancy, reduced risk of rejection, potentially permanent solution to chronic disease or illness
• The cons of tissue engineering include difficulty constructing scaffolds, requiring immense research, ethical considerations, issues in cell replication, complexity and functionality of the original tissue or organ
• Fiona Woods revolutionised burn treatment and developed "ReCell" (spray-on skin)