According to the national Institute of Health, "Regenerative medicine is the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects". Scientists in this field not only work on discovering new and more efficient ways of repairing damaged tissue but also do the research required to understand how to artificially create human organs quickly and efficiently. The process of regenerating damaged tissues and organs involves the stimulation of previously irrepairable organs to heal themselves. It also gives scientists the opportunity to grow tissues and organs in the laboratory and then safely implanting them in the body. Regenerative medicine has the greatest impact on the shortage of organs available for donation. The first successfull transplantation occured in 1878 involved removing a bone from a dead body and implanting it in the patient. The procedure was crude and highly unsuccessfully because at the time there was no way of processing and preserving human tissue. The first successful organ transplant was a kidney transplanted in 1954. This was followed by continued transplant success with the impalnting of a heart - lung, single lung, double lung, and a liver. The rapid development of transplant medicine and the boom in the population has created a large demand for implantable organs and tissues. Approximately 500,000 Americans are given a transplant each year, but nearly 100,000 have been put on a waitlist, most will die before they receive a donor organ. Procedures like xenotransplantation, the transplanting of living tissue from one species to another, as well as machines like the bioprinter will help to minimize the number of deaths from the lack of a compatable donor organ. |
