Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy

Regenerative medicine is a therapy in which the restoration of damaged tissues is carried out with the help of stem cells. This method of treatment appeared relatively recently, about 25 years ago, and therefore still belongs to high-risk therapy.

What cell therapy is, what diseases can be treated with it, and what dangers its use can carry. Many have heard about the benefits of stem cells, about promising genetic research, but not everyone knows exactly how this innovative direction of scientific activity can be useful to mankind ...

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Paradoxically, regenerative medicine is an ancient phenomenon, even antique. Even Aristotle wrote that applying bone marrow to wounds and fractures in humans can speed up their healing. Empirically, the idea that cells can be a medicine is not new. Humanity has always tried to use the regenerative potential of the body.

In the Middle Ages, there were approaches reminiscent of modern tissue engineering. Doctors transplanted soft tissue from the shoulder to restore disfigured facial structures.

In case of disasters, illnesses and injuries, we, of course, do not regenerate this way, but throughout our life we ​​produce a huge amount of cellular material, and in case of illness or injury we try to restore the tissue structure. This is just possible due to stem cells, which are found in almost all tissues of our body.

This kind of reserve is the stem cells that have been preserved from the prenatal period. They allow you to maintain the structure of an organ or tissue throughout life, giving new cells to replace dead cells in a natural way. In the event of a catastrophe, this reserve is activated and tries to restore at least some amount of matter necessary for the functioning of this organ.

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What is regenerative medicine in its modern form?

Regenerative medicine includes several areas. Cell therapy is a treatment using stem cells. Gene therapy, where we try to manipulate genes in cells or use the genes themselves as a healing principle.

Tissue engineering is the creation of artificial organs or tissues from cells. Now a direction has also arisen that can be conventionally called regenerative pharmacology. This is regenerative medicine without cell culture.

All over the world, regenerative medicine methods are classified as high-risk therapy. This suggests that we have been working in this area for too little time.

Let me remind you that for many centuries of the development of pharmacology, many mistakes were made in the development of drugs until the modern rules for their creation and testing were formed.

Regenerative medicine is a serious intervention in the body, and it must be justified. These are diseases where the patient has a very low chance of survival with other, "non-regenerative" methods of treatment. These are oncology, severe hereditary diseases, orphan diseases, in which young people and children, for example, often suffer and die.

If we are talking about irreversibly leading to death and progressive disease, then we are ready to intervene ethically. To some extent, this is regeneration after injuries, which lead to a very difficult life for the victim.

For example, in case of defects in the soft tissues of the face after a car accident, or in violation of the integrity of an important organ after surgery to remove a tumor.

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There are restrictions, and there are more and more of them. First, it is impossible to treat with technologies and methods that have not been tested on animals, that is, preclinical studies have not been performed. These should be specific cellular or gene products, carefully tested and strictly standardized, like any drug.

Second, in the vast majority of countries, the use of embryonic cells is not allowed, the creation of embryos for destruction and obtaining cell products for treatment is prohibited.

There is also an ongoing debate over genome editing for treatment, which is restricted in most countries. Many experts I know adhere to the position that this cannot be prohibited at all, because the technology is promising, but a temporary limitation is necessary until we understand the consequences, risks and ethical issues.

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