By Nabiha Saklayen – World Economic Forum –
Earlier this year, a Japanese health ministry panel recommended approval of the world’s first two therapies derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The milestone marked the culmination of nearly two decades of work in regenerative medicine.
One of the therapies repairs a failing heart, while the other restores dopamine production in Parkinson’s patients. Both work by replacing cells the body can no longer make on its own.
Their approval marks a category shift from medicine that manages biological decline to medicine that reverses it. And it raises a question that goes well beyond these two therapies: if we can now replace damaged cells in the heart and brain, what does that mean for how we think about ageing itself?
