Historical and Legal Aspects of Regenerative Medicine

“Regenerative medicine is a branch of translational research in tissue engineering and molecular biology, which deals with the process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function. This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs via stimulating the body’s own repair mechanisms to functionally heal previously irreparable tissues or organs.

Regenerative medicine also includes the possibility of growing tissues and organs in the laboratory and safely implanting them when the body cannot heal itself. If a regenerated organ’s cells would be derived from the patient’s own tissue or cells, this would potentially solve the problem of the shortage of organs available for donation, and the problem of organ transplant rejection.The term “regenerative medicine” was first found in a 1992 article on hospital administration. [...] Regenerative medicine refers to a group of biomedical approaches to clinical therapies that may involve the use of stem cells. Examples include the injection of stem cells or progenitor cells obtained through directed differentiation (cell therapies); the induction of regeneration by biologically active molecules administered alone or as a secretion by infused cells (immunomodulation therapy); and transplantation of in vitro grown organs and tissues (tissue engineering).” (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Regenerative_medicine)

Earlier, the concept was that adult tissues had no intrinsic potential for regeneration, and that somatic cells did not have the capacity of differentiation. A paradigm shift arrived with the postulation of the mesengenic process, claiming that there were Mesenchymal Stem Cells in adult tissues, which were able to differentiate into a variety of different tissues, like chondrocytes, tenocytes, adipocytes, neurons, and others, and could probably be used to regenerate the respective tissues (1, 2)(1, 3).  [...]