Under normal conditions, the human body has an astonishing capacity to self-regulate and heal itself. Unless weakened through misuse, environmental damage, or anomalies at the cellular level, to name just a few exceptions, we are largely capable of overcoming most illness and damage. Sometimes we have to help, like splinting or casting a limb, providing stability and immobility while a bone heals, and sometimes we have to give the immune system a little help with an antibiotic, jumpstarting the process of overcoming the germ attack. Minor incidents like colds and flus, scrapes, bumps, bruises, for the most part, can be handled by our physiology without much intervention from outside the body.
But not always.
War, disease, birth defects, vehicle and industrial accidents, sports injuries, can all produce conditions that the body just can’t overcome. Medical science has made tremendous strides in assisting patients in living more normal lives through transplants and prosthetics, microsurgery and superdrugs, and the advances have been exponential as we look through the history books. We’ve been anxiously anticipating the day when cancer is cured, when childhood diseases don’t rob children of the joys of youth. We’re not there yet, but a recent giant leap in that direction may permit these miracles in our lifetime.
Part biology, part sculpture, the scientific medical art of growing body parts has me in complete awe. Using the patient’s own tissue as a base, researchers provide a place and ideal conditions to allow the tissue to form a scaffold (think armature or mold for a paper mache sculpture). They use stem cells identical or structurally similar to the ones from the damaged, diseased, or missing organ, from the patient himself. (I know you can see where this is going and why it’s so exciting). When the scaffold is mature enough, the cells are applied to it, appropriate to the organ, along with any other necessary substances, cells, or tissue to begin the growing process.
The research results in the lab were successful enough to lead to implementation in human cases. Bladders, ears, kidneys, tracheas, and female genitalia malformed through birth defects have been fully functional in application. Researchers are experimenting with growth of other parts as opportunity and need arises, and they have expressed confidence and cautious optimism in the future of this science and medicine.
The prospect of the success of this effort has me on the edge of my seat for several reasons. One of the most disappointing events for a transplant patient is when, after a months-long or years-long wait for an appropriate organ, the body rejects the new organ; sees it as an intruder and attacks it. Because these new organs are made with the patient’s own organ tissue, the research hasn’t evidenced any rejection of the “new” organs.
Another huge plus for this research is that, although it uses stem cells, these are not the controversial embryonic stem cells recovered from aborted fetuses; these stem cells are from the patients themselves. If this research has continued success, it could open the door to further non-fetal stem cell research.
Diseases and conditions where stem cell treatment is promising or emerging. (See Wikipedia:Stem cell#Treatments). Bone marrow transplantation is, as of 2009, the only established use of stem cells. Model: Mikael Häggström. To discuss image, please see Template talk:Häggström diagrams (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Finally, and this almost brings me to tears to think of it, it’s still the patient’s body, mending itself, with, admittedly, a great deal of assistance, but the truth here is that this is the body acting in partnership with itself and the researchers, and by extension, Science acting in partnership with God to use what God created to work in its own behalf to do what it can no longer, or could never, do in its own behalf.
I’m an organ donor, a blood donor, and a bone marrow donor, and I don’t think the needs for those products is going away anytime soon; this research still has years to go before it’s common practice. But it’s coming.
Want to read more? Here’s an article from the Smithsonian magazine, one from the Guardian, and one from Forbes. What excites you or concerns you about this research?