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  • Essay / The Role of Regenerative Medicine in Modern Warfare

    It is a sad truth that aggression and war have always been a part of human history. There has never been a time when the world has been generally at peace. Unfortunately, a closer look at events on the international scene does not give us hope for a deviation from this trend in the near future. With the progress and development of science and technology, more and more sophisticated weapons are produced, having an extremely devastating impact on the conduct of war. (ICRC, 2013) (Chinedu Cletus Ude, 2018) International law fails to enforce many of the deadliest prohibitions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Although the use of chemical and biological weapons has been prohibited by international humanitarian law, reality shows a lack of respect for international conventions. (ICRC, 2013) Recent cases include Yemen and Syria. I believe that while the result of scientific and technological progress is often responsible for human suffering, it can and should also be used to remedy it. So, in my research, I decided to attempt to examine the possible positive impact of regenerative medicine in modern warfare. Medical, scientific and descriptive approaches were adopted as a basis for analysis. Modern Warfare: Technology has always been the source of improved tools of war. In contemporary times, systematic research in science and medicine has conditioned and made possible the development of new technologies and innovations for use by both the military and civilians. This development has had effects on both society and the nature of warfare. (Modern-Warfare, 2018) (Bohr, 2018) The man who would now be known as the father of chemical warfare and who was the first to exploit chemical weapons was actually his own guinea pig to test his invention. On January 2, 1915, Fritz Haber, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin, moved into the yellow-green cloud of chlorine gas on the ground, which was then used for troop exercises. The test was successful. Haber, a war enthusiast, began coughing rapidly and became pale, requiring him to be carried off on a stretcher. (Modern-Warfare, 2018) (Bohr, 2018)Approximately three weeks later, German forces used this chemical agent on a large scale for the first time during fighting on the Western Front near the Flemish town of Ypres in Belgium , where they deployed an approximate quantity of 150 tonnes of the substance. It was a first in world history: the successful use of chemical weapons on a large scale against humans. What would result from later fighting was a more widespread use of chemical weapons. Although allies condemned the incident, they too began using chemical agents on the ground. (Modern-Warfare, 2018) (Bohr, 2018) (Hughes, Chemical Weapons: The Day the First Poison Gas Attack Change the Face of Warfare Forever, 2016) Such innovations are mainly carried out in times of conflict. Inventions such as the telephone, the fighter plane and many others were explored during times of conflict. Not surprisingly, this is also when CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) weapons were examined. The nuclear bomb appeared near the end of World War II, and it is here that we can see a clear path for modern warfare. The First and Second World Wars were bridges to the emergence ofmodern warfare. A type of conflict where quantity is compromised over quality. Aspects of warfare that are more practical and generate a lot of damage and raw destructive power are favored over the older, more primitive methods of combat. (Modern-Warfare, 2018) (Bohr, 2018) However, nations spend more on the destructive capabilities of technology than on the human condition. What we can consider a common factor in most weapons these days, they are physical and exploit the inability of living organisms to heal fast enough. The damage is done faster or more severely than the body can repair it. This is why current funding is slowly but steadily redirected towards medical advances. (Modern-Warfare, 2018) (Bohr, 2018)Regenerative Medicine: Regenerative medicine is a branch of translational research in tissue engineering and molecular biology that deals with the “process of replacing, engineering or regenerating cells, tissues or human organs to restore or establish normal function". This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs by stimulating the body's own repair mechanisms to functionally heal previously irreparable tissues or organs. Current treatments can be summarized in three roots: Tissue engineering and biomaterials, cellular therapies, medical devices and artificial organs The main problem with all of this is that they need a surgical environment for treatment. not be deployed on a large scale in the field. This is why researchers are currently studying other storable and sustainable opportunities that are easy to apply. Although nothing resembling these guidelines is currently feasible or simply does not exist, they are being experimented with. Stem cells are a place to turn for many. Stem cells are cells that have the unique ability to develop into any specialized cell in the body. They can self-renew, meaning they can undergo multilineage differentiation and form terminally differentiated cells. Whether it's a nerve or a red blood cell, they can do it all. This is important because our body is made up of cells, where most cells are specialized to perform a specific task, such as red blood cells which carry oxygen in the blood, but cannot divide. Stem cells create new cells for the body as it grows or replace lost or damaged cells. They have two properties that allow them to do this; they can divide over and over again to produce new cells, they can change into any cell while doing so. (Nesti, 2011) There are two main groups of stem cells in the human body: Embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells: Embryonic stem cells provide the cellular reserve for growing embryos. These stem cells are pluripotent, which means they can develop into any cell in the body.They are derived from developing embryos.Adult stem cells: These cells provide new cells to organisms as they develop to replace existing cells. lost or damaged. They are called multipotent, meaning they can grow into only one set of cells, not all of them. at all stages and at all ages. Adult stem cells exist in every tissue in the body, from the brain to internal organs and fatty tissue.(Tiryaki, Tiryaki, Calabrese and Findikli, 2016) These cells can be harvested from any part of the body, but the number of cells harvested is usually very limited, so it is necessary to send them to a laboratory and culture them . in order to obtain enough cells to be used as a treatment modality. On the other hand, adipose tissue contains many more stem cells than other tissues. These are called fat-derived or adipose stem cells (ADSCs). Due to the high number of ADSCs in fat and the ease of harvesting adipose tissue from the body without causing damage to vital functions, adipose tissue has become the main source of stem cells in modern medicine. In practice, adipose tissue is surgically removed from the body using liposuction cannulas, in a very simple manner. Later, it goes through a separation process in which enzymes are introduced to separate the stem cells from the adipose tissue and then centrifuged for complete separation. 500cc of lipoaspirate produces 200 million regenerative cells. This whole process of harvesting the fat and isolating the stem cells takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. Due to these characteristics, adipose stem cells may be an ideal candidate for the world's armies to consider as treatments. However, like everything, stem cells have shortcomings that make them severely limited for military use. Even if the only stem cell line mentioned above, capable of proving itself in military use, is that of adipose stem cells, all of this nevertheless requires surgical treatment, both at the level of extraction and diluting. 'insertion. Stem cells are also fragile, as they are not durable enough to withstand conditions other than those in the laboratory. They are exposed to many types of exposure and have a limited lifespan. Stem cell treatment is also limited, as they can be used for radiation damage to cure cancer or radiation exposure, but virtually nothing other than chemical or biological threats. This means that there is no traditional healing of combat wounds. Stem cell treatments are also too expensive for large-scale use. The Future of Regenerative Medicine in the Military: This doesn't mean regenerative medicine will stop there. There are still many possibilities and new treatments are needed. For many people, feasible treatments are necessary. Exosomes could be the solution to this problem. Cells communicate with each other through cytokinesis. These are proteins excreted by one cell that tell another cell what to do. Stem cells work on the same basis, creating a repair sequence in all cells. Exosomes are small packages that break off from the outer wall of cells. (BMCBIOL, 2016) They can transport proteins and mRNA. However, what is important about exosomes is that they can carry mRNA. This is important because mRNA produces proteins. It's like a set of instructions for proteins to synthesize. These proteins can be building blocks or chemical signals. What connects exosomes to stem cells, you ask? Exosomes can be found in culture media when a stem cell is grown or cultured. (Hildreth, 2017) Due to exosomes containing mRNA and cytokinesis, it has been proposed to harvest them and inject them into a patient to stimulate repair. However, it's not all that simple. (Centeno, 2018)A)..