Patient heal thyself is the approach to medical treatment being applied under a new research field called "tissue engineering", according to a University of Liverpool researcher.
Prof David Williams told the Festival of Science that the current generation of body-part replacements, such as metal hip joints, replacement heart valves and implants, "are simply not good enough". They did not tend to last in the "very hostile environment of the body".
"Tissue engineering is all about persuading the body to heal itself," he said. It involved the combined use of synthetic substances and tissue components to encourage the body to develop its own replacements. It involved using the patient's own tissues and so there should be no problems of donor supply or infectivity and there would be no tissue rejection.
He said once grown they could be used in the patient and would work the same way as the original tissues. There had already been some success with the growing of replacement skin and researchers were already working to develop engineered cartilage, nervous tissues, veins and arteries and muscle tissue.
He said the goal would be to develop systems which could deliver whole organs. "That is a long way off."
He said the UK government was set to announce a £10 million sterling grant to support tissue-engineering research at the University of Liverpool and in Manchester. However, there were many ethical and legal hurdles to be overcome before tissue engineering could begin to deliver actual treatments.