History of regenerative medicine

Abstract

Until relatively recently, regenerative medicine has been a research term used to describe engineering or regrowing tissue to re-establish normal function [1]. Though research in this field and its clinical applications are novel, the central tenets are ancient. The idea that noxious stimuli applied to injured tissue can induce healing is traceable to 500 BC in Rome, where soldiers with joint dislocations were treated with hot needle therapy [2]. In the twentieth century, a practice known as prolotherapy, in which hyperosmolar substances were injected into damaged tissue, was popularized. As we have learned more about inflammation and its mediators, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections have been investigated as a method to regenerate tissue in a manner that is theoretically similar to prolotherapy. It is reasoned that because platelets contain inflammatory mediators and these molecules are critical to the healing process, injecting a higher than physiologic concentration of platelets could induce tissue regeneration with normal cell architecture.