Regenerative medicine: advances in new methods and technologies

The articles published in the journal Cell Transplantation - The Regenerative Medicine Journal over the last two years reveal the recent and future cutting-edge research in the fields of regenerative and transplantation medicine. 437 articles were published from 2007 to 2008, a 17% increase compared to the 373 articles in 2006-2007. Neuroscience was still the most common section in both the number of articles and the percentage of all manuscripts published. The increasing interest and rapid advance in bioengineering technology is highlighted by tissue engineering and bioartificial organs being ranked second again. For a similar reason, the methods and new technologies section increased significantly compared to the last period. Articles focusing on the transplantation of stem cell lineages encompassed almost 20% of all articles published. By contrast, the non-stem cell transplantation group which is made up primarily of islet cells, followed by biomaterials and fetal neural tissue, etc. comprised less than 15%. Transplantation of cells pre-treated with medicine or gene transfection to prolong graft survival or promote differentiation into the needed phenotype, was prevalent in the transplantation articles regardless of the kind of cells used. Meanwhile, the majority of non-transplantation-based articles were related to new devices for various purposes, characterization of unknown cells, medicines, cell preparation and/or optimization for transplantation (e.g. isolation and culture), and disease pathology.