HEALTHY LYF: A safer way to get stem cells

Amid all the hype and ethical debate about stem cell therapy, one mode of delivering stem cell treatments for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine remains medically sound: adipose-derived stem cell (ASC) treatment using adipose (fat) tissue taken from the patient's own body.

While these cells are available from umbilical cord blood and animals, the problem presented by introducing tissue from another person or an animal remains the same: the risk of tissue rejection poses its own set of health risks and makes regenerative therapy expensive.