Every year hundreds of people die in the country while waiting for an organ transplant. Considering the huge number of people waiting for cadaver organs, stem cell therapy can prove to be beneficial to them, said Vipul Jain, founder of Advancells.
Stem Cells have shown great promise in solving the issue of organ transplants. It can work in two ways. Firstly, stem cells can help in regenerating the damaged organ thereby reducing the need of an organ transplant itself. Secondly, if an organ transplant is inevitable, science is showing great promise where organs can be printed in a 3D printer and loaded with stem cells to be translated in a body. Experiments around the world have also been successful in growing organs with the help of stem cells in a petri dish that can be transplanted into the body. The research is still at a very young stage but hopefully, it will be commercially available in next 8-10 years, said Jain.
Stem cell research holds great promise for improving human health by restoring cellular and organ function damaged by degeneration and various injuries. At the same time, it also raises several scientific, ethical and social issues in the development of such applications. Since stem cell research is in the nascent stage in India, there is no regulation to monitor the stem cell therapy practices.
The government must come out with a set of regulations to monitor and regularise these new treatment regimes. Regulations will not only ensure standard treatment policies for patients but also make treatment providers more responsible and data gathering more authentic in this field, he opined.
The stem cell therapy has bright future in India. A stem cell has the potential to change the medical world the way we see it today and is the future of modern medicine. India is positioned uniquely as a lot of work is being done and hopefully, in the next 5 years, we will be at the forefront of this revolution, he concluded.
Advancells helps in providing regenerative medicine based therapeutic solutions for the treatment of various life threatening and lifestyle diseases. The company develops treatment protocols and produces stem cells in its lab that can be used by its partner hospitals and doctors to treat these diseases. Advancells has tie-ups with over 50 doctors and 10 hospitals across the country to provide treatments. The company set up by Jain in 2013 has done over 500 treatments till now.