Regenerative medicine
by tissue engineering
Thus far we have explained a number of things as a way of leading up to a discussion of regenerative medicine. We have done this because we think that all the things we have said about cells and matrices are necessary knowledge in order to talk about regenerative medicine. To begin with, regenerative medicine was proposed for the purpose of regenerating body tissue lost to illness, accident, etc. The word "radical treatment" is often used in this connection, and this term is defined as treatment that radically (completely) returns the body to its original state. In the quest for radical cures, researchers have proposed extensive use of a variety of new technologies, such as using living cells to cure disease with regenerative medicine or making skillful use of genes (This explanation does not cover gene therapy).
The idea behind tissue engineering is to create high-performance artificial organs and tissue by skillfully combining the 3 elements of "cells", "matrices", and "physiologically active substances". We could even say that this approach is essential to regenerative medicine. It is a new method of curing diseases that were previously uncurable. That is easy to say, but in actuality it is extremely difficult.
We all are very familiar with the means of curing disease that is referred to as "medicine". Most likely there is not a single soul who has never taken or used any kind of medicine. If you go to the hospital, medicine will be prescribed as a matter of course, and nowadays you will be able to find some sort of medicine even at a convenience store. In this sense, you all have a general idea of what is meant when someone says that "a previously uncurable disease can now be cured with a new medicine." It means that the medicine prescribed by the doctor has some new effect that none of the older medicines possessed. The way of using the medicine, like swallowing it or receiving it as an injection, remains unchanged. Of course, it takes no small amount of effort on the part of the developer to come up with a new medicine. An incredible amount of effort on the part of a surprising number of people goes into the development of a new medicine.
However, realizing regenerative medicine is a little different. In order to cure a previously uncurable disease by a totally new treatment method based on the concept of regenerative medicine, the hospitals and doctors who use the new treatment method must do a lot of things that are unnecessary with a new medicine. If we limit this to the new method of a treatment using cells, then cells obtained from the patient need to be greatly and successfully increased in number. There is no room for failure here. You cannot just throw away the cells that were so painstakingly harvested from the patients. Within a limited amount of time, you must multiply the cells that correspond to each individual patient and then skillfully embed the multiplied cells in a matrix. These must also be maintained in the state we call an artificial organ.
At the same time, the hospital, upon receiving a new, living artificial organ of this kind, must store it under the optimal conditions until the time of the transplantation and then take responsibility for transporting it to the operating room. It is also a serious matter if the operation has to be postponed at the patient's convenience. Unlike medicine, this artificial organ is alive (raw). In not a few cases, it is difficult to store it for more than the planned period of time.
Until not too long ago, treatments using the patient's own cells were not performed outside of certain experimental treatments in research studies. Unlike the kind of drug-based treatment that you can get at any hospital, treatments based on regenerative medicine were available only at a very limited number of hospitals. However, in recent years, regenerative medicine that uses tissue engineering to create epidermis, cartilage, etc., has gradually been spreading. But the realization of a treatment that is based on using tissue engineering to create an artificial organ or tissue from the cells of all the patients' bodies does not depend solely on the corporation or facility that produces and provides the tissue or even on the hospital; it also requires a deep understanding and solid cooperation on the part of the patient receiving the treatment.