Lancet Commission: Stem cells and regenerative medicine
Prof Giulio Cossu, MD Correspondence information about the author Prof Giulio Cossu Email the author Prof Giulio Cossu , Prof Martin Birchall, MD, Tracey Brown, BA, Prof Paolo De Coppi, MD, Emily Culme-Seymour, PhD, Sahra Gibbon, PhD, Julian Hitchcock, MBBS, Prof Chris Mason, PhD, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, LLM, Prof Steve Morris, PhD, Prof Francesco Muntoni, MD, Prof David Napier, PhD, Nazanin Owji, Msc, Aarathi Prasad, PhD, Jeff Round, PhD, Prince Saprai, PhD, Jack Stilgoe, PhD, Adrian Thrasher, PhD, James Wilson, PhD
In this Commission, we argue that a combination of poor quality science, unclear funding models, unrealistic hopes, and unscrupulous private clinics threatens regenerative medicine's social licence to operate. If regenerative medicine is to shift from mostly small-scale bespoke experimental interventions into routine clinical practice, substantial rethinking of the social contract that supports such research and clinical practice in the public arena will be required.
For decades, stem cell therapy was predominantly limited to bone marrow transplantation for haematological diseases and epidermis transplantation for large burns. Tissue engineering and gene therapy faced huge challenges on their way to clinical translation—a situation that began to change only at the end of the 1990s. The past 10 years have seen an exponential growth in experimental therapies, broadly defined as regenerative medicine, entering the clinical arena. Results vary from unequivocal clinical efficacy for previously incurable and devastating diseases to (more frequently) a modest or null effect. The reasons for these widely different outcomes are starting to emerge....Links
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Media Coverage Of This Article - BMJ Opinion
The false promise of regenerative medicine
Richard Lehman
“In this commission, we argue that a combination of poor quality science, unclear funding models, unrealistic hopes, and unscrupulous private clinics threatens regenerative medicine’s social licence to operate.” To put it more bluntly, many people are beginning to think it is all rubbish, while others bankrupt themselves pursuing false hope. This article does not pull its punches: “… the number of poorly regulated clinics has grown...
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