Advances in stem cell-based regenerative medicine: Despite setbacks and failures, therapies to replace damaged tissue are making their way into the clinic.

Abstract

EMBO Reports (2019) e48172 Stem cell‐based regenerative medicine has experienced turbulent times in recent years that have involved several scandals implicating prominent institutions and numerous retractions of papers from leading journals. But it has also seen real progress being made on the way to the clinic. It reflects the tension between human ambition and hope on one side and the need for hard evidence and solid data on the other side in a field where early expectations ran far ahead of reality. This tension may help explain the recent scandal involving stem cell surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who was found guilty of scientific misconduct regarding an article in The Lancet , which has since been retracted. It is an ongoing saga as Macchiarini is still publishing in leading journals, even though his reputation as a surgeon and stem cell researcher has been compromised. > … the whole field of regenerative medicine had been tainted by a number of cases where […] researchers had taken short cuts and neglected basic science. The story dates back to 2004, when Macchiarini's team extracted some pig intestine and removed the cells to leave a collagen matrix that was then repopulated with muscle and fibroblasts to generate connective epidermal tissue. The patch was implanted in the airway of a 58‐year‐old patient suffering from respiratory problems after surgery for lung cancer [1]. Macchiarini then expanded this technique to whole tracheas using plastic scaffolds in addition to natural tissue from human donors. In another clinical case, the bare plastic scaffold was populated with stem cells taken from the patient's own bone marrow and implanted in a young female patient in 2008. This propelled Macchiarini almost to rock star status and an appointment by the Karolinska Institute, where he refined his technique by replacing donor windpipes with plastic …