Applications of regenerative medicine in organ transplantation

Abstract

A worldwide shortage of organs for clinical implantation establishes the need to bring forward and test new technologies that will help in solving the problem. The concepts of regenerative medicine hold the potential for augmenting organ function or repairing damaged organ or allowing regeneration of deteriorated organs and tissue. Researchers are exploring possible regenerative medicine applications in organ transplantation so that coming together of the two fields can benefit each other. The present review discusses the strategies that are being implemented to regenerate or bio-engineer human organs for clinical purposes. It also highlights the limitations of the regenerative medicine that needs to be addressed to explore full potential of the field. A web-based research on MEDLINE was done using keywords “regenerative medicine,” “tissue-engineering,” “bio-engineered organs,” “decellularized scaffold” and “three-dimensional printing.” This review screened about 170 articles to get the desired knowledge update.

A critical review of current progress in 3D kidney biomanufacturing: advances, challenges, and recommendations

“…Researchers have had success in creating small organ models of a human kidney [133,134] and heart [135] which are significant to disease modelling [136] and drugs and toxicity screening [137]. Unfortunately, the current limitations including the size of the structures mean that their lifespan is limited to days rather than years, which makes any estimation of appropriate scale model success speculative [1].…”

“…The need for modern, accessible, and feasible regenerative therapy solutions for the manufacture of human organs has never been more significant, as the gap between organ need and availability continues to widen globally. This is despite significant efforts to educate the population in the importance of organ donation [1]. In 2014, a report into organ transplantation in the USA revealed kidneys as the most frequently transplanted organ with 15,978 operations, which is approximately 5000 more than all other organ transplants combined [2].…”

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“…According to the United States Department of Health & Human Services, an organ recipient is being added every ten minutes to the waiting list and twenty-two patients die every day waiting for an organ transplant [5]. The large gap in supply and demand has even led to some organ donors seeking monetary compensation on the black market [6]. Moreover, even when a viable organ is available, it may be unusable due to lack of consent [7].…”

Home-Grown Kidneys: Challenges and Mechanisms Behind Tissue Engineering for the Treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease

“…5 The large gap in supply and demand has even led to some organ donors seeking monetary compensation on the black market. 6 Moreover, even when a viable organ is available, it may be unusable due to lack of consent. 7 Although there is much awareness regarding the need for organ donors, individuals are unable to donate their organs unless they have provided written consent.…”