More on Personalized Medicine
In the not-very-distant future, when something is going wrong in one of your organs, one treatment may be to create some stem cells from your body in the laboratory, turn them into cells of that organ, or even rudimentary structures, and then subject them to experimental treatments to see if something cures the problem. The goal of personalized medicine, in other words, may be reached by stem-cell researchers before it’s reached by geneticists.
See our previous posts on personalized medicine and Obama’s opposition here and here.
Such research takes personalized medicine to the next level. Similar scientific innovation will, no doubt, bring major improvement in one’s life. However, as always, there is the cost. How will access to this level of intensive services translate into the cost of care?
As personalized medicine become more common, insurance and medicaid/care will start to cover it.
Pretty cool! It’s good to see some positive improvements by researchers in the area of stem-cell development.
I’m sure it will be decades before it is common or cheap enough for medicare/medicaid to cover it.
An advance in accelerated cell reconstruction would be crucial.
Trreatments with one’s own adult stem cells is already a reality. I know doctors who already do it — they just have to keep a few steps ahead of the FDA. I read a case where the FDA closed down some New York doctors who were spinning (concentrating) stem cells from patients’ fat.
i think the costs for stem cell or organ regeneration would be lower than the long term costs of dealing with bad organs so this seems like something that healthcare providers would cover