There’s been a rise in recent years of biomedical engineering techniques that can restore lost tissue and bone.
If you’ve been in a car crash, for instance, there are ways to restore or repair the lost body part or damaged tissues. Sometimes patients will undergo surgical reconstruction; sometimes they’ll be fitted with medical devices such as plates in their knees or hips.
But these approaches have limitations. One is that a steel plate can’t really mimic the functions of damaged tissues or lost bones, so you can lose mobility and flexibility. Another is that these techniques often involve multiple painful operations and long hospital stays. That costs patients a lot of time and money.
There is an alternative: tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This process started about three decades ago, and often builds on existing findings to test new approaches. It aims to reactivate biological processes to form products that can help with bone regeneration and tissue loss caused by trauma.
Now research at the Tshwane University of Technology’s department of biomedical sciences in South Africa has shown good lab results in tests involving certain medicinal plants activating body cells and enhancing bone formation.
One of the plants, the autumn pineapple flower (Eucomis autumnalis) has been used to heal fractures for centuries. Today it’s often used as a herbal remedy for postoperative recovery and wound healing.
Another medicinal plant used in the study, Pterocarpus angolensis, promotes the formation of cartilage and regulates collagen, which is a substance rich in human bone and cartilage.
These are exciting findings, because they suggest that incorporating medicinal plants with the relevant properties into biomedical engineering could be a good way to address the limitations of current approaches to restore or repair lost body parts.
(Source: theconversation.com)
