Stem cells bond our organs/tissues and engineering products.

placed in an artery to keep the vessel patent to maintain blood flow. Stent implantation is a major treatment option for CAD (eg, in bypass surgery) and has saved many patients’ lives. But no therapy is without risk. In fact, in clinical practice, persistent inflammation occurs around the stent, and can result in coronary restenosis and thrombosis. Until now, however, there has not been an appropriate experimental in vivo model to analyze the mechanisms of these side effects. In this issue of the Journal, Sato et al2 report on the established animal models of coronary stenting. In the past, many researchers used the endothelial injury model of CAD, in which there is transient injury to the endothelium, and then the mechanisms of restenosis of the artery are analyzed. But the stent implantation model has had difficulties because of inflammation around the stent. Sato et al used the stenting model of the rat abdominal aorta and showed that transplantation of adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) prevents this persistent inflammation. Stem cells can self-renew and differentiate into multiple types of cells and have varying degrees of differentiation potential: he human body is made up of trillions of cells that work together. Cells make up tissues and organs, and a group of organs performs a certain function for homeostatic maintenance. Many diseases result from a homeostatic imbalance. Stem cells in organs and/or tissues play important roles in the regulation of homeostasis. Stem cell-based therapy has become a promising strategy for the treatment of many diseases. Therefore, regenerative medicine may one day restore the function of damaged organs or tissues. On the other hand, tissue engineering, such as cell-sheet and artificial organs that might supplement or completely replace the functions of impaired or damaged tissues, has developed remarkably.1 An integrated strategy of tissue engineering including artificial organs and stem cell-based therapy medicine should give rise to a new regenerative medicine for organ failure.