Modern medicine typically focus on either treating a disease or prevention of a disease. Most of the diseases are mainly controlled by medical treatment. In contrast to this, the regenerative medicine aims to repair the disease state of the body by either replacing tissue or organs that have been damaged by disease or trauma. Several methods are used to achieve this, ranging from tissue engineering, cellular therapies or use of medical devices and artificial organs. This is a rapidly evolving branch of medicine where large amount of research is being undertaken. This is a multidisciplinary field which will eventually involve expertise from large number of experts outside medicine, example experts in biology, chemistry, engineering, genetics, robotics etc. The promising field of Regenerative Medicine is working to restore structure and function of damaged tissues and organs. It is also working to create solutions for organs that become permanently damaged. The goal of this approach is to find a way to cure previously untreatable injuries and diseases.

Molecular: This includes small molecules that are the building blocks of your body, like DNA, fats, and carbohydrates.

Cellular: This includes cell structures like neurons or axons that are responsible for cell growth and reproduction in your body.

Tissue: This includes blood, skin, bone, or muscle.

Regenerative medicine first picked up steam in the 1990s when tissue engineering became popular for stem cell research and procedures like skin grafting.

1. Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials

Tissue engineering is a strategy where biologically compatible scaffolds are implanted in the body at the site where new tissue is to be formed. One of the promising areas of the application of this form of regenerative medicine is for post spinal cord injury stroke rehabilitation. There are various centres around the world who are exploring different kind of biomaterials and scaffoldings to bridge the gap between the two ends of injured spinal cord in order to facilitate nerve regeneration. The long term aim of this branch of medicine is to create replacement tissues ranging from heart valves to entire organ to improve the survival and health of a patient.

2. Cellular Therapies

Many millions of adult stem cells are found in every human. Our body uses stem cells as one way of repairing itself. Studies have illustrated that if adult stem cells are harvested and then injected at the site of diseased or damaged tissue, reconstruction of the tissue is feasible under the right circumstances. These cells can be collected from blood, fat, bone marrow, dental pulp, skeletal muscle and other sources. Cord blood provides yet another source of adult stem cells. Scientists and clinicians are developing and refining their ability to prepare harvested stem cells to be injected into patients to repair diseased or damaged tissue.

Cellular therapies offered currently at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre

Majority of the medical treatment aims at controlling the disease or treating the symptoms. To give an example antidiabetic drugs control the dysregulated insulin secretion and paracetamol tablets symptomatically treat the fever of any cause. Despite years of research and advances in the medical science there are only handful of disease which can actually be cured by medical treatment. Needless to say that it would be of the great interest for mankind to find cure for diseases enhance to permanently get rid of the same.

Regenerative medicine is one step towards achieving the same. The goal of regenerative medicine is to replace or reboot tissues or organs damaged because of disease, injury, age, or other issues instead of treating symptoms with medication and procedures.