Political Quotes

“I wish to engage in a brief colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee regarding innovative research being used to treat our soldiers. Tissue engineers in the U.S. are applying principles of biology and engineering to grow human replacement tissue for virtually every part of the human body--tissues that will replace those damaged by disease or injury. Recently, enormous national attention was focused on the creation of fully functioning tissue-engineered bladders--bladders grown in the laboratory and implanted in children with spina bifida. One day, tissue engineering may eliminate the need for organ transplantation. In the near term, this exciting field of biomedicine has developed several products for immediate use, some of which have important implications for wounded military personnel. Novel biological scaffolds for wound treatment are being developed to eliminate the need for skin grafts. The work is based upon extensive preliminary research that shows biologic scaffolds from extracellular matrix--a component of virtually every tissue--can promote tissue growth that very closely resembles tissue regeneration. The scaffolds, called urinary bladder matrix, or UMB, have two ``layers'': a membrane surface upon which skin cells may grow and differentiate quite readily and a lower surface that may integrate well into the underlying wound bed.…”