September 2011

Colorado Clinic Skirts FDA To Provide Stem Cell Treatments

Regenerative Sciences Inc. in Broomfield, CO provides adults with stem cell treatments to repair bones and damaged joints.

The Federal Drug Administration has yet to approve stem cell treatments, which has been heavily politicized in the previous ten years by conservative lawmakers and evangelical activists. Regardless of this fact, Chris Centeno and John Schultz have formed Regenerative Sciences Inc. in Broomfield, Colorado. The clinic, which deals entirely in stem cell treatments called a Regennex procedure, extracts stem cell tissue from the patient's bone marrow, and then injects them in the damaged joint or bone tissues. No surgery needed. The clinic has, so far, treated over 350 patients, using more than 800 injections, reporting that 89% of their knee patients and 75% of their hip patients have shown significant improvements within months.

Metallic Cells Could Broaden our Definition of Life

 

It's long been thought that, if there were to be life somewhere out there in the void of space, it would probably be composed of more or less the same stuff that living things on earth are made of. If you're alive on this planet, chances are you've got a lot of carbon in you. Living matter seems to follow a few specific chemical patterns, and despite the diversity of elements in our physical vicinity, we living things are made up of only a few. 

But the universe is big. Absurdly big. And who's to say we've pinned down exactly what life can and can't be? Our conception of intelligent life includes some sort of consciousness like our own, but need that consciousness run on a similarly organic organism? Couldn't there be, somewhere in the vastness, something very much like life but made of entirely different materials from life as we know it? 

Growing Bioartificial Organs

 

It'd be a huge relief to the medical world if we could just make new organs. We've tried faking it with some degree of success--hearts, for example, are somewhat replicable with similar machines, and dialysis can replace kidneys from an external vantage point--but some organs are too subtle to simply swap out with cyborg parts. And some people prefer not to walk around like Darth Vader, with inorganic body parts powering their newly bizarre existence.