Tissue engineering
Scientists and journalists agree: Tissue engineering is about to become the defining key in medical technology of the 21st century.
With the help of tissue engineering it will become possible to "repair" body tissue and organs with adult stem cells and thereby restore their natural function or maintain them over longer periods than previously possible.
Up to the end of the 90s, tissue engineering research was regarded by the general public as an unknown quantity. For journalists it was at best a term they had only heard of! Spring 1998 saw the breakthrough:
With the release of the first product of tissue engineering by the US Licensing Authority, the FDA, the revolutionary discipline provided the proof of its practicality.
However, this was only the beginning. At a few select scientific centres, for example in the USA, practical experiments have already been carried out on reproducing various tissues, organ parts or even whole organs. This procedure is now well on the way to becoming medical normality.
In future, the availability of our own healthy stem cells will be the key factor as to whether we can take advantage of new, innovative therapies for malignant or degenerative conditions.
Autologous adult stem cells will be needed or generate a highly significant advantage with regard to any therapeutic opportunity opening up in the future.
