Regenerative Medicine
February 28 2008 / by futuretalk
Category: Biotechnology Year: General Rating: 17
Regenerative medicine could restore youth to seniors in 15 years
By Futuretalk
Is this the next step in American health care? Experts say it is.
Sometime in the next 15 years, a senior might look into the
mirror and wonder, “Who is that gorgeous person?” Their 
reflection would reveal a young body with natural hair
color, resilient skin, perfect vision, real teeth, and an
incredibly sharp mind and memory.
Welcome to the world of regenerative medicine where a recent government report declared this futuristic technology to be the next phase of American healthcare. This announcement has prompted officials to create the Federal Initiative for Regenerative Medicine (FIRM) with an aggressive goal to provide affordable tissues and organs “on demand” for every citizen by as early as 2020.
Derived from biology, biochemistry, physics, engineering and nano-science, this amazing technology can regenerate damaged tissues and organs in vivo (in the living body) by stimulating irreparable organs into healing themselves, and grow them in vitro (in the laboratory) when the body cannot heal itself.
Though theories differ widely, most experts agree that to successfully combat aging, researchers must first find cures for all of the diseases associated with aging – heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia, muscle and bone deficiencies, hearing and sight loss, and many other illnesses.
Most scientists believe that stem cell therapies represent the best remedy to eliminate these diseases. As we age, the stem cell reserves we are born with decline. Cells lose their ability to regenerate and repair tissue, causing our skin, organs, immune structure, muscles, and other areas, to deteriorate.
Researchers believe that by replacing aging cells with new stem cells, most of these age-related diseases can be stopped. And as a bonus, patients receiving stem cell therapies will also experience feelings of increased energy, vigor and strength; their bodies will actually become more youthful.
FIRM provides the following timeline for development of this cutting edge technology:
By 2012 – Develop multiple applications for skin, cartilage, bone, blood vessel, and some urological products; solve cell sourcing issues, giving researchers access to the materials they need to design new therapies; establish cost-effective means of production, paving the way for future products; and create specialized cell banks for tissue storage, allowing storage of viable “off the shelf” products.
By 2017 – Further understand stem cell and progenitor cell biology; engineer smart degradable biocompatible scaffolding; develop microfabrication and nanofabrication technologies to produce tissues with their own complete vascular circulation; and develop complex organ patches that could repair damaged pieces of the heart or other organs.
By 2022 – Create regenerative medicine materials to replace diseased and damaged structures in most of the body; re-grow damaged tissues or organs such as an entire heart, lung, kidney, or other body part.
Regenerative medicine promises to put an end to America’s trillion dollar health bill and it will bridge most people alive today into the “roaring 20s” where disease and aging will no longer be a drain on human energies. By mid-2020s, the only remaining causes of death in the U.S. could be accidents and violence from crime or wars.
Could a world without aging and sickness ever become reality? Although there are major challenges to this scenario, positive futurists believe that this “magical future” will happen. By 2022, that ‘kid in the mirror’ could be you!
Comments welcome.
Comment Thread (6 Responses)
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While of course being tremendously beneficial and solving many current human ailments, don’t you think that a regenerative medicine boom would increase the amount we spend on medicine rather than decrease it? Sure we’d cut current treatment costs, but wouldn’t we also find a zillion other new treatments to spend money on? I could easily see successful new medical techniques doubling what we Americans spend on medicine. Hopefully the rest of the pie grows enough that the new bill is still lower than the current bill %-wise.
Posted by: Accel Rose February 28, 2008
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The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services announced the proposal to change the nation’s healthcare from reactive to proactive and named it: “2020: A New Vision – A Future for Regenerative Medicine.”
They state that “Beyond the obvious health benefits of regenerative medicine, this technology is desperately needed to combat rising healthcare costs.
Current national healthcare costs are in excess of $1.5 trillion annually, or 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product.”
Proponents of the initiative are confident that this program will lower health costs, not just displace them.
For more on the initiative, go to this link http://www.hhs.gov/reference/newfuture.shtml
Posted by: futuretalk February 28, 2008
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This is a very exciting field. The financial impact of regenerative medicine will not be simple. Regenerative medicine treatments will vary in cost and scope. Some will re-vitalise entire organs and organisms (humans), and have a regenerative effect lasting decades. Others will be narrower in scope and last months or years. But for purposes of discussion, you can look at regenerative medicine as a single field.
Short-term, the impact will increase health care costs, like most new technologies or treatments. Long-term, the cost/benefit ratio depends upon the socio-politico-demographic spinoffs and side-effects of the treatments, and whether they get out of the control of their originators. A lot of very interesting things can happen when you start putting significant genetic alterations into viruses. Yes, there will be safeguards, but . . .
Regenerative medicine could generate a trillion dollar company if the treatment is powerful enough, and remains in the control of the originating entity.
Posted by: AlFin February 28, 2008
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By 2017 develop microfabrication and nanofabrication technologies to produce tissues with their own complete vascular circulation. Whoa. Considering that some folks are already printing tissue this development seems very plausible. My first imagination-reaction was that such technologies could begin to split up our body system, creating circulatory and neural redundancy that could make it dramatically more difficult to die – or make it possible to lose and replace chunks.
Posted by: Alvis Brigis February 28, 2008
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@Accel Rose I have to reference my interview with Aubrey de Grey again, because I made that same argument. I liked his response:
“I’m quite sure that this will be available to absolutely everybody. And the reason I’m sure, is because people will regard it as sufficiently important that it needs to be available to everybody. We can look at the situation with, for example, basic education at the moment. The U.S. makes basic education free at the point of delivery irrespective of the ability to pay simply because we appreciate that it’s a fundamental human right to get a good start in life. Now, the same applies here. We can’t actually give very many people very many extra years of healthy life with the medical technology that we have today, whereas these technologies will be able to give everybody a very great deal of extra life, and that will of course mean that the value that the public place on it will be correspondingly greater, and I think that there will be absolutely no question in people’s minds that it’s something that everybody’s entitled to.
Posted by: Venessa Posavec February 28, 2008
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As life extension advocate Aubrey de Grey and other forward-thinkers believe, death is simply a disease that our human ingenuity has the potential to overcome.
It is easy for me to believe that all unwanted human deaths can and will be eliminated by mid-century or before. Regenerative medicine techniques are just the beginning of a string of technologies that could one day result in an indefinite lifespan for everyone.
When people stop dying, will this make our planet too crowded? Nanotechnologists say it will not. Some believe that molecular nanotech, the ability to rearrange atoms, can re-terraform Earth to support 100-billion people; and space enthusiasts believe that one day, humans will find off-world life more attractive and begin a space exodus that will never end.
Eliminating death will have huge impacts in some areas though. Take religions that play on the fear of death when they promise believers an “afterlife.” What will they have to offer if people don’t require this afterlife anymore?
We could be heading for a truly weird future.
Posted by: futuretalk February 28, 2008
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