Tissue engineering - Essay Example

ed to traditional methods as it solves twin problems of donor scarcity and the risks of tissue transplant rejection including transmission of diseases (Gomes & Reis, 2004, p. 738). Tissue engineering is a relatively new field of research and there is a paucity of certain academic scientific materials and research studies. It is expected this new field will have a big impact on the provision of health care in the coming years when more complex bio-materials are needed for functional tissues like bones, cartilage or large bone segments (ibid.) and even complex organs.

Stem cell research has been very useful so far but there are so many ethical and other moral issues involved which has stymied large-scale efforts in this direction. Tissue engineering has no such ethical considerations as it does not involve embryonic stem cells. This new process holds much promise from the medical and economic standpoints as it skirts moral issues while potentially offering much lower costs to the patients. As example, the world market for bone grafts shows 50% are from autologous grafts while only 10% are from synthetic bio-materials thereby indicating substantial room for growth in terms of unmet market need.

This entirely different approach intends to help diseased, defective or lost tissues to regenerate themselves or develop biologically-acceptable substitutes using homogeneous or heterogeneous cells. The new technique is alternatively called as regenerative medicine or as re-constructive medicine using either autogeneic cells or foreign cells. In the course of conducting research, medical scientists accidentally found out statins are very helpful in the formation of bone tissues. This coincidental or accidental discovery is very much reminiscent of the way Viagra (sildenafil citrate) was discovered to be helpful in curing ED while in the course of conducting research for finding a cure of many heart-related ailments like pulmonary arterial hypertension, angina pectoris and