Every thirty seconds, a patient dies from a disease that could be treated with tissue replacement (Atlata). Regenerative medicine is a new and exciting development. Tissue engineering unlocks key new opportunities in medicine. This advancement in medicine could change lives, so it needs to be examined and discussed in great detail. Regenerative medicine is a great advancement in medicine, but as a society we need to be conscious and careful in implementing it into the medical society. Some aspects of regenerative medicine can be controversial, so that needs to be considered as well. Overall regenerative medicine can do amazing things for the medical society, but needs to be monitored. I argue that we should implement regenerative medicine on a few trial patients before trying it all on patients to ensure its success. 

Interest in tissue engineering has been around for centuries. However, the modern era of regenerative medicine has only been around since around a quarter of a century ago. Stem cell research started in the 1920s and then became the main research initiative for regenerative medicine (Badylak). The earliest attempt of regenerative medicine was skin substitutes. By the 1990s, commercial development for regenerative medicine had begun. By the turn of the century the commercial activity had encountered a variety of problems. One of the main problems was that the commercial company's needed to be reimbursed by third parties, which was not happening. The study of regenerative medicine has not stopped though. Progress is continuing to be made (Badylak). Early forms of regenerative medicine are already in use.  For example over thirty drugs based on human proteins are approved for sale in the United States (Haseltine). 

 The future of regenerative medicine holds the development of extremely effective cures for degenerative diseases, traumatic injuries, and disorders for which only limited therapeutic options are currently available. The creation of blood cells from stem cells, the creation of insulin-secreting cells for the treatment of the very common ailment diabetes, the functional fixing of the heart after a patient has a myocardial infarction (heart attack), and the regeneration of nerves after spinal cord injury, which could fix paralysis, all represent attainable goals for regenerative medicine (Badylak). All of these hopes for regenerative medicine are life changing. 

Regenerative medicine will allow people to live much longer and healthier lives (Haseltine). Regenerative medicine is using science and medicine to repair, replace, and regenerate damaged tissues. One of the main goals of regenerative medicine is to extend or improve a patient's quality of life by returning their bodies back to their normal state. Regenerative medicine includes all of the following research areas: biomaterials engineering, transplantation science, cell therapy, and tissue engineering (Chang). This new type of medicine could benefit society by increasing life expectancy, reducing the effects of aging, eliminating the problem of organ transplant rejection, and replacing or fixing damaged organs. Regenerative medicine could also be useful in finding the cures to cancer, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders, and disorders related to old age (Chang). So far regenerative medicine has been used to produce synthetic blood vessels, urethras and bladders (Maugh). There are three main types of regenerative medicine. The first type uses human proteins and genes for drugs. This type has been in use for a long period of time and is successful. The second type is using human cells and tissues (Haseltine). This type is accomplished by first taking a small amount of the patient's cells. Scientists then place the patient's cells in a dish and allow them to multiply. A complex scaffold is then created, and the cells are placed in the scaffold to coat it. The Scaffold is the shape of the organ it is mimicking.  The scaffold is made so that it disintegrates once it's placed inside of the patient's body. If the tissue being made is a muscle tissue, it is exercised to make sure if can perform its function inside of the body. The scaffold is placed into an oven-like device that has the same conditions as the human body. Once this is done the scaffold with the new cells on it is placed inside of the body, and the new organ can function normally (Atlata). The third type of regenerative medicine is using embryonic stem cells. This type of regenerative medicine is not in use yet but if society allows it, it will be soon. What's amazing about regenerative medicine is that instead of using another animal's organs to replace our own, we can make our own using human cells (Haseltine). 

Regenerative medicine could provide the medical community with great advances and cures. An example of this is the story of Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene. He suffered from tracheal cancer, and the tumors were about to close off his windpipe. This would cut off his supply of oxygen. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini of Karolinska University Hospital decided that there was no time to wait for a donor trachea, so he constructed one from Andemariam's own cells. Andemariam didn't need anti-rejection drugs like he would with normal organ donation because the trachea was made with his own cells. The transplant was successful, and Andemariam is cancer free. Without regenerative medicine, Andemariam would have died. A donor organ wouldn't have become available in time to save his life. Regenerative medicine saved his life, and it will save many others. Another regenerative medicine success story is the story of the hobby store owner, Lee Spievack. Lee accidentally sliced off the tip of his finger. Normally the tip of his finger could have been re-attached, but Lee misplaced his severed fingertip. In this circumstance normally, Lee would have been stitched up and left to live a life of compromising due to the loss of his fingertip. Lucky for Lee, his brother was a doctor studying early types of regenerative medicine. Lee's brother, and his now doctor, applied EMC onto Lee's finger. The EMC signals to the body to stop the immune response of scarring, and to begin to replace the lost tissue. After about one month Lee's fingertip grew back, fingernail and all (Lee). This is a great example of why regenerative medicine is an important research topic. Once regenerative medicine is implemented, lives will be changed for the better. 

One of the major benefits of regenerative medicine is that because scientists use the patient's own cells, the patient's body won't reject the new cells. With normal organ donations, the chance of the patient's body rejecting the organ is high. Even after months of having the organ, the body can still start to reject the organ. Organ rejection often happens and then the patient has to wait for another organ to become available. The patient would have to wait for a regenerative organ to be created, but this can be started as soon as the patient is diagnosed. Using animal parts to replace human parts that stop working is also common (Alata). With regenerative medicine we no longer have to do this. Personalized cells can be used to produce tissues. These cells will be almost an exact match therefore this is the best option. 

 With regenerative medicine, the patient doesn't have to take anti-rejection medications which lowers the patient's immune system. Immune systems are programmed strongly to recognize tissue compatibility, so it will recognize the patient's own tissue (Tayor).  Lowering the patient's immune system can leave them susceptible to deadly infections (Atlata). There are an inadequate number of organs available in the United States of America. A lot of patients die waiting for an organ to be donated. A simple solution that could fix this problem is to get more people to donate their organs, but this is not as easy as it seems. Organs are normally only donated when people die, and have to be an exact match to the patient they're being donated to. It is very difficult to match people to organs. With regenerative medicine, matching organs is not an issue because the organ is made with cells from the patient's own body. 

Another benefit of regenerative medicine is that it can cure the diseases that our society has been trying to cure for years like: Diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and dementia. All of these diseases and illnesses could be treated or cured with regenerative medicine. Soldiers who have been injured in war could also benefit from regenerative medicine. If soldiers lost limbs or functions of their limbs regenerative medicine could be used to produce new limbs or to heal the tissues in the damaged limbs. Regenerative medicine is even showing promising signs of being effective for treating wrinkles and the effects of old age (Chang). 

The approaches to tissue reconstruction and regenerative medicine vary widely.  Regenerative medicine will likely be so successful that it will become difficult to decide which medical problem gets funded first. Once successful, regenerative medicine will become the standard of care, and everybody will need it. Ideally it will be the most effective and the safest treatment. The only problem is that these medical treatments will most likely be too expensive for every patient to afford.  It will be impossible to decide who gets the newest, and best care first. Other countries have dire medical needs as well. Nobody has the answers to these questions yet. We also don't know how much money we should reserve for regenerative medicine (Trommelamns). Nobody knows how expensive this will end up being since it is so new.  Financials is one of the problems with regenerative medicine. These problems need to be figured out before regenerative medicine is used for patients.

One of the conversations surrounding regenerative medicine is the issue of stem cells. What's special about stem cells is that they can change into any kind of cells. Normally a cell stays the same type of cell for its entire life. For example, a nerve cell is always a nerve cell; it can't change into a different kind of cell. Stem cells are exactly what their name implies, stems, that almost any type of cell can develop from. These cells are important for regenerative medicine because they could be used to make any organ that was needed. Embryonic stem cells are a little different.  Embryonic stem cells must come from an embryo of a fetus. People who label themselves as "pro-life" believe that using embryonic stem cell tissue is wrong because the act of harvesting the stem cells destroys an embryo (Abboud). Yet at the stage of development that the embryonic stem cells are harvested, the human embryo only contains around 100 cells. The human embryo has no heart, no brain, and no nervous system so it cannot feel pain. Medical facilities that preform in vitro fertilization discard thousands of these very valuable embryos every year.  Some embryos are even donated; the donator would rather see them help the sick than be discarded (Haseltine). Regenerative medicine can move forward without embryonic stem cells.  Scientists are improving new techniques to develop human tissue without the use of embryonic stem cells. Scientists are now using stem cells from human skin to grow organs and tissues (Chang). Researchers actually say that adult stem cells work better for regenerative medicine. It has been discovered that stem cells are in almost every adult organ, and have already been extracted from adults for about a decade. (Abboud). 

An additional controversial conversation surrounding regenerative medicine involves the risks it could potentially bring with continued progress. Scientists are very excited about the progress regenerative medicine is making but it needs to be monitored. One of the possible concerns is that the new cells could pass on viruses to the patients that are receiving the organ that the cells made (Murnaghan). Another concern about regenerative medicine is that animals could pass on viruses to the stem cells being used. Viruses are a concern because animal products could be used to provide nutrients to the stem cells. Currently, no screening system that is sufficient enough to detect these viruses is available. Some of the diseases that animals contract cannot be cured by humans yet. Viruses passed on by animals could cause a potentially big problem in regenerative medicine (Murnaghan). If embryonic stem cells are being used to create these new organs they could grow uncontrollably. Embryonic stem cells are so young that they can grow very quickly. This can be a great thing for regenerative medicine because more cells means more organs for people in need. The downside of this is that the fast growth of the cells could cause them to grow uncontrollably. Cells that grow uncontrollably can cause tumors.  The growth of these cells will need to be monitored by scientists carefully. The possibility of transplanted stem cells differentiating into the wrong type of tissue is another concern regarding the use of stem cells in regenerative medicine. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which means they have no specific function yet. Scientists must direct them to become the type of cell that is desired or needed. This challenge is being overcome by inducing partial stem cell differentiation before transplanting the organ into the patient. Scientists still know very little about stem cell transplantation. Transplantation has only been successfully done a few times. For example, in 2011 researchers claimed to have made cells that produced insulin. This claim was later found to be incorrect. The cells they thought were producing insulin had actually just absorbed insulin from their environment; the cells did not produce it (Murnaghan). All new discoveries take time to become successful. As scientists learn more about these new and exciting procedures they can control and plan for these concerns.  

Regenerative medicine is important because it will affect everybody in society. This is important because regenerative medicine can change and improve lives. These new medical developments could change the medical world from the way that we know it. Without these advancements in medicine we will continue to have people reject donated organs, die while waiting for an organ, and die from diseases that could be cured with regenerative medicine. 

In conclusion, regenerative medicine can change the world of medicine. Majority of the conversations surrounding regenerative medicine conclude that we should go all in. Society should implement regenerative medicine in every case that it can. I argue that we should go slowly with regenerative medicine. We should try regenerative medicine experimentally on a few patients and wait a few years to see the effects. Once the results are successful we should implement regenerative medicine as a standard medical practice. Regenerative medicine has come a long way since it was first developed. Once it is refined, regenerative medicine could cure many medical conundrums. Every 30 seconds, a patient dies from diseases that could be cured with tissue replacement. Society cannot continue to let this happen; we have to stop this. 

