stem cells and restoration?

anyone have any links to any research useing stem cells to grow then attach a forskin, or implanted to regrow a forskin?

i think this is probably the most promising technology for real foreskin restoration, but haven't found much on it.

yeah I was thinkin of this too. stem cells can be used to grow pretty much any body part, although the technology is a ways off. but not by too much i think... until then, it's manual stretching FTW!

Would be cool. They should try using the "cloaning' method, (on indiviuals with some fren left intact) to regrow the missing pieces, and surgically attatch them. my 2 cents.....

robert o. becker [http://www.rexresearch.com/becker/becker1.htm] discusses a procedure w/microcurrent and silver-coated flexible nylon covering called 'silver iontophoresis', which can basically de-differentiate the scarred portion of a wound, in order to make it stem-cell like and heal.

Very incredible stuff, but -- when can I BUY it? ?

All good ideas, I was curious about them as well. Seems they can regrow all sorts of things but the curiousity is when are they going to able it to cosmetic surgory...

Stem cell technology is a long, long way off from all accounts I've heard of. Also foreskin restoration is going to be waaaay down the pecking order of cosmetic surgeries (if there's even enough interest to pursue it at all), and cosmetic surgeries are waaaaay down the pecking order as far as research goes.

Don't hold your breath.

The promise of embryonic stem cell research is that these cells could differentiate into ANY type of bodily tissue. I guess this could theoretically include foreskin, but it would still have to be attached somehow. I would think that this could lead to some desensitization, and cost A LOT of money. Even if they knew how to make the stem cells differentiate into these tissues, there is an enormous process to get the production actually accomplished. One would need a blastocyst (early embryo, or fertilized egg) that is grown and a stem line is harvested by removing them from the egg. Then it would need to be treated with certain chemicals to differentiate into the proper tissue, which could take weeks. This would have to be watched closely, and it might even be necessary for the nucleus of the fertilized egg to be removed and replaced from a nucleus of your skin cells via somatic nuclear transfer.

Anyway, sorry, I'm a biology major starting med school in the fall and I've got a very good background about this. My conclusion is that it would be very expensive and there would surely be an easier way to get this accomplished than through the use of stem cells.

matts22 said:

The promise of embryonic stem cell research is that these cells could differentiate into ANY type of bodily tissue. I guess this could theoretically include foreskin, but it would still have to be attached somehow.

Click to expand...

The huge problem with embryonic stem cells is the genetics only match the dead embryo. Any treatment derived from them, especially body parts, would require extensive use of anti-rejection drugs to have a chance at success. If you stop taking the drugs, your new foreskin would not live very long.

The only way around this problem is cloning, and that creates other problems such as gene mutations. Not to mention ethical issues.

Even if you could create a foreskin and reattach it. What are the chances that they will be able to connect enough of the nerves so that it will have more than minimal sensation?

I think that nanotechnology is a future possibility to improve what you already have.

There is a big difference between therapeutic cloning (of bodily tissues) and reproductive cloning (of sheep, monkeys, and possibly humans). Only uneducated people will tell you that somatic cell nuclear transfer leads to "cloning" as most people educated on the issue know that this is very different from cloning a whole animal.

The purpose of embryonic stem cell research is to create new tissues, nerves, etc. via therapeutic cloning (which shouldn't have the word cloning in it at all...it should just be called tissue regeneration). Anyway, they would only need a few of your skin cells to do this (after a nucleus is transferred, the cells will multiply and copy the new nucleus).

I don't think anti-rejection drugs are going to be that much of an issue, because they will simply have to do SCNT.

I also don't think there should be ANY ethical issues involving SCNT as it is NOT CLONING.

I entirely aggree with you Matts22, and hope that treatment will become available before I snuff-it.
It's just possible that research will advance to help war wounded, just as plastic surgery was pioneered to help horribly burned fighter pilots in WW11.
When it reaches the guinea-pig stage, I will happily give it a whirl.
Dispite restoring for 11 years, and aiming for full erect cover, I would love a real business-end to my foreskin.
Damn that mutilator to hell.

interesting, i recently read of a therapy thats actually available in other countries beside the us, such as in mexico, called 'live cell therapy'.

just type it in a search engine, i dont really understand it but basically it sounds like adult stem cells from other animals, injected, and somehow this allows your *own* stem cells to grow around it, and fill in the spaces.

Apparently many famous people have had this done. So, its not embryo stem cells, but cells from a shark I believe it is, that somehow allow your own stem cells that still exist [organ specific processes] to grow.

The media, especially the US media, seems to be obsessed with embryonic stem cells. Yet, there are in fact TWO types of stem cells. Adult stem cells, and embryonic stem cells. The latter kind are from aborted babies and are the cause of the all the right-vs-left controversy and heated debates on FOX News, etc.

The former kind, however, the ADULT stem cells, are from adults as the name implies, and are often taken from the patient's own body. Yes, even adults have many many stem cells inside of their bodies. In fact in the future it may be possible to dontate your stem cells somewhat like you can donate blood today. Adult stem cells are distributed throughout your body, everywhere. If you want stem cells, then no aborted fetus is needed - your body already has plenty.

So the whole argument around embryonic stem cells, and all those heated debates on radio and TV and parodies on South Park, are just a bunch of people talking about something they know little (or nothing!) about. Because nearly all of the successful research on using stem cells comes from using ADULT stem cells. When I last studied this stuff (some time ago now), ALL of the successful trials had used ADULT stem cells, and all the embryonic stuff had failed. This might be different now, but needless to say, the research in adult stem cells is waaaay ahead of the embryonic ones and has been waaaay more successful.

Sure, the embryonic stem cells have the extra capacity to become any body part. But since your own stem cells already exist in all your body parts right now, are the embryonic ones really needed? Quite a few researchers think that once practical and commerical treatments mature and develop, the embryonic ones may not be needed at all.

So --- could we see stem cells used in the future for FR? Possibly, but if we do see that developed then it is highly likely that the stem cells will be adult ones, and taken from your own body – probably from your genitals where they have already partially specialized towards those types of tissues, etc.