The Promise and Possibilities of Regenerative Medicine
When it comes to the future of medicine and medical care in general, few branches medicine are more promising than regenerative medicine LA, which has become an epicenter for this exciting field.
But its also one of the most misunderstood. There are also many misconceptions about exactly what it is, so let’s start with a definition and expand from there.
Simply put, regenerative medicine is the use of the body’s healing powers to heal damaged tissues and organs. The goal is to treat and cure diseases that were previously thought incurable, and advances are occurring in leaps and bounds.
There are four basic fundamental branches of regenerative medicine. The first is based on the use of medical devices and working with artificial organs. In many cases these organs are grown by the patients themselves. One example would be spina bifida, a genetic defect that prevents thousands of children from around the world from being able to use and empty their bladder.
With this branch of regenerative medicine, these patients are using artificial bladders grown from their own cells. This eliminates the possibility of tissue rejection, which greatly enhances the chance of success when treating this debilitating disease.
Yet another example of regenerative medicine is based on biomaterials and tissue engineering. This particular branch has already been successfully used to treat defective heart valves with new ones that are effectively grown from human cells. Once again, rejection becomes a non-issue.
Cellular therapies constitute still another branch of regenerative medicine. The best example of this would be bone marrow transplants for childhood leukemia, which often present huge hurdles when it comes to finding a matching donor.
Not with cellular therapies. For this particular disease, blood from the umbilical cord is harvested and stored, providing a reserve of healthy blood that contains many stem cells. The stem cells could be used as a source for the marrow transplant, giving doctors an effective way of treating this horrible disease.
The final example of regenerative medicine is referred to as clinical translation. This might sound vague, but its one of the most exciting possibilities of all because it represents the process of putting theoretical treatments and cures into clinical trials.
Imagine a world where heart disease could be treated effectively and perhaps even cured by drugs and treatment protocols developed in clinical trials. Then expand that possibility to diabetes, which is a borderline scourge in the US today.
These are just two quick examples of how regenerative medicine is changing the face of medicine around the world. There are many new techniques and treatments on the way as well, and these that doubtless change the way we view and treat disease and illness in the future.
[I wrote this as an overview of regenerative medicine, but I didn’t deal with the specifics of finding someone in LA. I did leave the keyword exactly as phrased in the instruction header, though, even though the grammar isn’t technically correct, I hope that’s okay. Please let me know if you need anything else.