Title:Stem Cell Based Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine: A Review Focusing on Adult Stem Cells
VOLUME: 1 ISSUE: 1
Author(s):Jordan Greenberg, Veronica Fortino, Daniel Pelaez and Herman S. Cheung
Affiliation:Miami VA Medical Center, Research Service, 1201 NW 16th Street Miami, FL 33125, USA.
Keywords:Regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, adult stem cells, cell-based therapies, scaffold-based therapies, immunosuppressive, apoptosis, telomeres, cartilage, Myocardial.
Abstract:Tissue engineering has emerged as a field that attempts to harness the bodies’ own developmental and repair
features to treat diseases and illnesses. Many of these illnesses are caused by necrosis or loss of functionality of complete
organs or specific cell types. Early discoveries in embryonic stem cells fueled a wave of research that led to claims about
possibly regenerating nonfunctioning organs. Although we are still far away from being able to grow functional organs in
a Petri dish, the field continues to progress forward, and new clinical trials have been approved for using both embryonic
and adult stem cell based solutions for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Current trends have moved towards
adult stem cells for cell based therapies as they offer an autologous source and are less tumorigenic than their embryonic
and induced-pluripotent stem cell counter parts. This review will begin with an outline of stem cell classes and then focus
on current therapies in myocardial tissue repair, neural tissue repair, diabetes, as well as osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation
are also reviewed.
