title: Genetically modified cells in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
abstract: Regenerative medicine appears to take as its patron, the Titan Prometheus, whose liver was able to regenerate daily, as the field attempts to restore lost, damaged, or aging cells and tissues. The tremendous technological progress achieved during the last decade in gene transfer methods and imaging techniques, as well as recent increases in our knowledge of cell biology, have opened new horizons in the field of regenerative medicine. Genetically engineered cells are a tool for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, albeit a tool whose development is fraught with difficulties. Gene-and-cell therapy offers solutions to severe problems faced by modern medicine, but several impediments obstruct the path of such treatments as they move from the laboratory toward the clinical setting. In this review we provide an overview of recent advances in the gene-and-cell therapy approach and discuss the main hurdles and bottlenecks of this approach on its path to clinical trials and prospective clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Dima
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sheyn
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mizrahi
authors.forename: Shimon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Benjamin
authors.forename: Zulma
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gazit
authors.forename: Gadi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pelled
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gazit
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017690:Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D015316:Genetic Therapy / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D044968:Regenerative Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation / Q000379:methods; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*