Medicine is in a continuous process of evolution, with the aim to find answers/solutions to the failures which are still encountered, as well as to the new pathologies which are emerging in our societies. From this perspective it is mandatory that scientific research is always kept at the basis of medicine, that the two walk closely together, and that research keeps receiving stimuli and indications from the clinical field. A new frontier, nowadays, lies in cellular therapies and/or in the “new” transplantations. This field represents a significant change, from the “old” medicine of organ transplantation to a new medicine, which may allow us, in the future, to produce in the laboratory the tissues which are needed by a specific patient. Along this difficult path we are trying to objectively define where we stand, without illusions but also with growing certitudes. Cellular therapies are now being proposed as realistic therapeutic options for conditions such as the rejection of transplanted organs, graft versus host disease, infectious complications of transplantations, septic shock. In the meantime the bulk of knowledge deriving from basic research, ranging from immunology to stem cells, is suggesting new scenarios and protagonists in the growing field of translational research, in a continuous interlacing of knowledge and expertise.
Proff. T. Barbui and G. Remuzzi