Regenerative Medicine Partnership in Education: Latest Research and Future Developments

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Regenerative Medicine Basics

Learn with Movies

Learn more about stem cells and scaffolds and all that makes tissue engineering and regenerative medicine with our movies:
- Dr. Allevable's Unbelievable Laboratory (K-8) discovers adult stem cells and discusses the biology and health of the bone and the heart
- Our Cells, Our Selves explores the evolution of the immune system, and how regenerative medicine scientists hope to better understand it to help cure diseases like Type 1 Diabetes.

What You Will Find

In this section, you will find interactive activities and other learning tools.

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Latest Research and Future Development

Regenerative medicine researchers are leading the way in treating all kinds of conditions and injuries. Read on for the latest developments!

Heart Disease

Doctors are currently using bone marrow stem cells taken from the patient’s own body to treat heart disease. Hearts get injured when they suffer a heart attack, and a patch of heart muscle cells die. Left to its own devices, the heart tissue will create scar tissue which will leave it prone to more injury. Doctors are researching scaffolds and stem cells to hopefully create healthy new tissue instead!

Diabetes

Current Research:
Read more about the study that examines making islet cells from brain stem cells here.

Scientists are experimenting with harvesting and cultivating stem cells that could mature into islet cells, and then transplanting them into patients with Type I Diabetes – an islet cell transplant! For example, some researchers at Stanford University believe that stem cells from the brain can mature into islet cells.

See also spinal cord >>

Parkinson’s disease

Stem cells may be used to form a neuron that secretes dopamine. These nerve cells can theoretically be transplanted into a patient where they will rewire the brain and restore the functioning that is lost through the disease.

Cancer

Stem cell transplants have been used to treat certain cancers, like leukemia, for many years, and research is ongoing.

Traditionally, it has been very hard to treat brain cancer because it spreads quickly. Researchers have found that injecting neural (adult) stem cells into the brains of animals like dogs and rats can successfully treat cancerous tumors.

Deafness

Using stem cells, scientists have regrown cochlea hair cells.

Blindness and vision impairment

Researchers have successfully transplanted retinal stem cells into damaged eyes to restore vision. Using embryonic stem cells, scientists are able to grow a thin sheet of totipotent stem cells in the laboratory. When these sheets are transplanted over the damaged retina, the stem cells stimulate renewed repair, eventually restoring vision.

ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University used stem cells to cure rats of an ALS-like disease. The rats were injected with a virus to kill the spinal cord motor nerves related to leg movement. Their spines were then injected with stem cells, which migrated to the sites of injury. There, they regenerated the dead nerve cells and gave the rats back the ability to walk!

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