Regenerative bladder augmentation using autologous tissue - When will we get there?

摘要

When we initiated research on the engineering of bladder tissue in 1990, the concept of tissue engineering was in its infancy and the concept of cell plasticity was just being explored. Wilmut et al did not describe the cloning of a sheep named Dolly until 1997 and the discovery of human embryonic stem cells was not reported by Thomson et al until 1998. The term "regenerative medicine" was not even coined until the late 1990s, around the time that the first engineered organ, the bladder, was implanted in a patient. We have learned much during this period and although the field of regenerative medicine has since expanded rapidly, there is still much to learn.