Regenerative medicine
Overview
The Regenerative Medicine ( from the Latin regeneratio = reappearance ) is a relatively new field of biomedicine. It is concerned with the cure of various diseases by regenerating non-functioning cells, tissues and organs by both the biological substitution, for example, using cultured tissue, as well as by stimulating the body's own regenerative and repair processes.
It is hoped that the regenerative medicine, new approaches in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury or cancer. But even common diseases such as diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease or obesity should be cured through regenerative medicine in the future. The lifestyle medicine tries to activate regeneration processes in the body by an optimal biological environment ( diet, physical activity and psychosocial factors ) is created for it.
The principles of regenerative medicine are successfully used in stem cell transplantation for more than forty years to treat leukemia and lymphoma; in organ transplantation great progress has been achieved in general in recent years. Newer fields of regenerative medicine are the so-called ' tissue engineering ' ( growing tissue - and cell ) and the ' gene therapy ' (repair or replacement of defective genetic information ). Regenerative medicine is one of the main research areas of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology ( IGB).
Individual methods
- Electrospinning to produce microfibers are created from those so-called scaffolds connective tissue - mimicking
- Growth factors and other components of the extracellular matrix, which fulfill functions attached to it
- Stem cell, Induced pluripotent stem cell can be administered in various biological versions that infused or integrated into scaffolds
- Mechanotransduction can be influenced by the scaffold, the erheblichst differentiation of the cells
- Nanomedical elements a variety of methods based on ultra- small features