Growing Organs from Stemcells

[Zolar V]

They can grow organs from a patients own stem cells now correct?

 

if so then why isn't the process becoming commonplace? The organs that are grown from the patients stem cells aren't rejected because they are the bodies own tissue. Is there still research being done in the field?

[Marat]

High cancer risk plus the difficulty getting stem cells to do what you want them to do are two of the hold-ups. Most people in the field think they may be 30 to 50 years away from having anything representing an actual clinical application of stem cell therapies which could grow new organs.

 

You also have to keep in mind that medical progress is glacially slow, in part because regulatory agencies ask only whether new treatments are safe and effective, rather than what they should ask, which is whether they represent rational interventions in the context of patients who are likely to die or wish they were dead if something drastic and new is not attempted.

 

It would also take the average team of medical researchers a thousand years to discover how to open a door if you gave them a schematic diagram of a door knob plus a working model. If you read the average medical journal article with the dates edited out of it, you can hardly tell whether it was published in 2010 or 1980.

[Zolar V]

Seems they need new blood in their researching fields then. some real people that want to invent for the sake of people and inventing rather than money.

[CharonY]

This is not even the real issue here. AFAIK there was progress in creating tissue from stem cells, but not yet fully functioning organs. Also, getting fully functioning stem cells is non-trivial to begin with. Reversing adult cells to become pluripotent again requires regulatory manipulations which enhances tumorigenesis (as the normal regulation leading to differentiation has to be knocked out). This is very unlikely to be beneficial right now.