Today, when someone needs a new heart, they have to wait until someone dies and can provide a heart for transplantation. But this can take years and years, and there is no guarantee that their body will accept the heart transplant. What if doctors could construct a new heart using a small number of cells from the body of the person with the defective heart?
Depuis son apparition sur terre, l’Homme a souvent éprouvé le besoin de remplacer des parties du corps après mutilation, perte, ou défaillance.more…
If you thought the only way to repair your damaged knee was to replace it, you might find an interest in cartilage tissue engineering. This new therapy is an alternative to knee replacement for patients who suffer from cartilage lesions in one knee. Professor Hoemann, from the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal explains in this interview what cartilage tissue engineering is, how it works and how it will transform the life of patients.
Grâce au génie tissulaire du domaine cutané qui permet de cultiver les cellules de la peau, le temps nécessaire au recouvrement des plaies des grands brûlés est raccourci de quelques mois, limitant ainsi les risques d’infections mortelles. Le Dr Berthod, chercheur à l’Université Laval, nous explique dans cette entrevue comment cela est possible mais aussi quels sont les défis qu’il reste à relever pour se rapprocher le plus possible de la peau d’origine.
Would you feel comfortable with the idea that your cells might be used to regenerate tissues in the body of a person you never met? Or the other way around, would you agree to get new tissues with cells coming from an anonymous person? Even if the applications of tissue engineering are still limited, it is important to start thinking about ethical considerations specific to this new field. Because of its complexity and its ability to regenerate tissues, previously unknown problems may emerge.
