Advent and Maturation of Regenerative Medicine

Abner      M. Mhashilkar; Anthony      Atala

Abstract

The field of regenerative medicine (RM), encompassing stem cell (SC) technologies, therapeutics, tissue engineering (TE), biomaterials, scaffolds and other enabling technologies provides a wide gamut of tools and tracks to combat, manage and hopefully cure serious human and animal injuries, dysfunctions and diseases. This review illustrates the trends that are becoming the major platforms in this field. The last 10 years in itself has seen major definitive observations, including multi-track directives of adult stem cell translational technologies, tissue and organ engineering protocols, iPS cell applications and understanding of the role of cancer stem cells to develop effective anti-cancer regimens. With the rapid advances of RM translational research, further advances are expected to be implemented for personalized repair and curative outcomes. RM future is bright although laden with challenges of global fragmentation which needs coherent consolidation, stringent cost and time effective regulation and long-term funding mechanisms, so clinical and diagnostic solutions are realized and recognized to combat unmet medical needs.

Keywords: Bone marrow, cord blood units, hematopoeitic stem cells, human embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy, tissue engineering, umbilical cord blood