Medicine's Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs

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<p>(CBS) Imagine re-growing a severed fingertip, or creating an organ in the lab that can be transplanted into a patient without risk of rejection. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not. It’s the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine, in which scientists are learning to harness the body’s own power to regenerate itself, with astonishing results. </p>

<p>[Medicine’s</a> Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs, The Future Is Here: Regenerative Powder, Ink Jet Heart Cells And Custom-Made Body Parts - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml]Medicine’s”>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/sunday/main3960219.shtml)</p>

<p>fascinating stuff…</p>

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<p>Check out this article:</p>

<p>Reader’s Digest Article Calls CVBT’s Protein Treatment a ‘Gleam of Hope’ for Patients with Severe Coronary Heart Disease</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/readers-digest-article-calls-cvbts/story.aspx?guid={9B1821E2-8354-49BA-A19D-1B7652063F88}[/url]”>Latest News - News Viewer - MarketWatch;

<p>Here is the Reader’s Digest story:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.rd.com/health/heart/new-treatment-for-heart-transplant-hopefuls/P5/article.html[/url]”>http://www.rd.com/health/heart/new-treatment-for-heart-transplant-hopefuls/P5/article.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>And this is a non profit organization - the Regenerative Medicine Organization - that just hosted a conference in February 2008:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.regenmd.org/[/url]”>http://www.regenmd.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I think it’s a wonderful concept.</p>

<p>Organ transplants may seem like a great idea, but people who get them have to take anti-rejection drugs that suppress the immune system, thereby making them vulnerable to a variety of other health problems. So the medical rigamarole never stops.</p>

<p>The regenerative approach offers the hope of solving a problem without creating a whole bunch of new ones.</p>

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<p>With current organ transplants, in the end, almost all reject. The drugs used are very potent and have many, many side effects. Using organs with one’s own genes by possibly using cloning or stem cells is the dream for many in that field.</p>

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<p>Not to mention that in order to receive a transplant for many organs, someone else has to die.</p>

<p>Imagine being able to do this for infants who are themselves unable to withstand major surgery, or too small to qualify for any available organs. Parents of children who receive those organs would no longer feel guilty for being happy when some other parents’ child needed to die for theirs to live.</p>