Embodiment and regenerative implants: a proposal for entanglement.

Regenerative Medicine promises to develop treatments to regrow healthy tissues and cure the physical body. One of the emerging developments within this field is regenerative implants, such as jawbone or heart valve implants, that can be broken down by the body and are gradually replaced with living tissue. Yet challenges for embodiment are to be expected, given that the implants are designed to integrate deeply into the tissue of the living body, so that implant and body become one. In this paper, we explore how regenerative implants may affect the embodied experience of implant recipients. To this end, we take a phenomenological approach. First, we explore what insights the existing phenomenological and empirical literature on embodiment offers regarding the experience of illness and of living with regular (non-regenerative) implants and organ transplants. Second, we apply these insights to better understand how future implant recipients might experience living with regenerative implants. Third, we conclude that concepts and considerations from the existing phenomenological literature do not sufficiently address what it might be like to live with an implantable technology that, over time, becomes one with the living body. We argue that the interwovenness and intimate relationship of people living with regenerative implants should be understood in terms of 'entanglement'. Entanglement allows us to explore the complexities of human-technology relations, acknowledging the inseparability of humans and implantable technologies. Our theoretical foundations regarding the role of embodiment may be tested empirically once more people will be living with regenerative implants.

How Smart are Smart Materials? A Conceptual and Ethical Analysis of Smart Lifelike Materials for the Design of Regenerative Valve Implants.

It may soon become possible not just to replace, but to re-grow healthy tissues after injury or disease, because of innovations in the field of Regenerative Medicine. One particularly promising innovation is a regenerative valve implant to treat people with heart valve disease. These implants are fabricated from so-called 'smart', 'lifelike' materials. Implanted inside a heart, these implants stimulate re-growth of a healthy, living heart valve. While the technological development advances, the ethical implications of this new technology are still unclear and a clear conceptual understanding of the notions 'smart' and 'lifelike' is currently lacking. In this paper, we explore the conceptual and ethical implications of the development of smart lifelike materials for the design of regenerative implants, by analysing heart valve implants as a showcase. In our conceptual analysis, we show that the materials are considered 'smart' because they can communicate with human tissues, and 'lifelike' because they are structurally similar to these tissues. This shows that regenerative valve implants become intimately integrated in the living tissues of the human body. As such, they manifest the ontological entanglement of body and technology. In our ethical analysis, we argue this is ethically significant in at least two ways: It exacerbates the irreversibility of the implantation procedure, and it might affect the embodied experience of the implant recipient. With our conceptual and ethical analysis, we aim to contribute to responsible development of smart lifelike materials and regenerative implants.

Patient, parent and professional expert perspectives on personalized regenerative implants: a qualitative focus group study.

Background: Perspectives of patients, parents and professional experts on personalized regenerative implants for regenerative medicine purposes are largely unknown.Method: To better understand these perspectives, we conducted four focus groups with professional experts of mixed European nationality (n = 8), Dutch patients with regular implants (n = 8), Dutch and Belgian (n = 5) and Spanish (n = 8) parents of children with cleft palate.Results: Two overarching themes were identified: 'patient-centered research and care' and 'ambivalent attitudes toward personalized regenerative implants'.Discussion: The results reveal that stakeholders should adopt a participatory rather than an impairment discourse and address the ambivalence among professional experts, patients and parents.Conclusion: Considering stakeholder perspectives facilitates ethical and responsible development and use of personalized regenerative implants.

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Personalized 3D printed scaffolds: The ethical aspects.

Personalized 3D printed scaffolds are a new generation of implants for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine purposes. Scaffolds support cell growth, providing an artificial extracellular matrix for tissue repair and regeneration and can biodegrade once cells have assumed their physiological and structural roles. The ethical challenges and opportunities of these implants should be mapped in parallel with the life cycle of the scaffold to assist their development and implementation in a responsible, safe, and ethically sound manner. This article provides an overview of these relevant ethical aspects. We identified nine themes which were linked to three stages of the life cycle of the scaffold: the development process, clinical testing, and the implementation process. The described ethical issues are related to good research and clinical practices, such as privacy issues concerning digitalization, first-in-human trials, responsibility and commercialization. At the same time, this article also creates awareness for underexplored ethical issues, such as irreversibility, embodiment and the ontological status of these scaffolds. Moreover, it exemplifies how to include gender in the ethical assessment of new technologies. These issues are important for responsible development and implementation of personalized 3D printed scaffolds and in need of more attention within the additive manufacturing and tissue engineering field. Moreover, the insights of this review reveal unresolved qualitative empirical and normative questions that could further deepen the understanding and co-creation of the ethical implications of this new generation of implants.

The Ethical Implications of Tissue Engineering for Regenerative Purposes: A Systematic Review.

Tissue Engineering (TE) is a branch of Regenerative Medicine (RM) that combines stem cells and biomaterial scaffolds to create living tissue constructs to restore patients' organs after injury or disease. Over the last decade, emerging technologies such as 3D bioprinting, biofabrication, supramolecular materials, induced pluripotent stem cells, and organoids have entered the field. While this rapidly evolving field is expected to have great therapeutic potential, its development from bench to bedside presents several ethical and societal challenges. To make sure TE will reach its ultimate goal of improving patient welfare, these challenges should be mapped out and evaluated. Therefore, we performed a systematic review of the ethical implications of the development and application of TE for regenerative purposes, as mentioned in the academic literature. A search query in PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and PhilPapers yielded 2451 unique articles. After systematic screening, 237 relevant ethical and biomedical articles published between 2008 and 2021 were included in our review. We identified a broad range of ethical implications that could be categorized under 10 themes. Seven themes trace the development from bench to bedside: (1) animal experimentation, (2) handling human tissue, (3) informed consent, (4) therapeutic potential, (5) risk and safety, (6) clinical translation, and (7) societal impact. Three themes represent ethical safeguards relevant to all developmental phases: (8) scientific integrity, (9) regulation, and (10) patient and public involvement. This review reveals that since 2008 a significant body of literature has emerged on how to design clinical trials for TE in a responsible manner. However, several topics remain in need of more attention. These include the acceptability of alternative translational pathways outside clinical trials, soft impacts on society and questions of ownership over engineered tissues. Overall, this overview of the ethical and societal implications of the field will help promote responsible development of new interventions in TE and RM. It can also serve as a valuable resource and educational tool for scientists, engineers, and clinicians in the field by providing an overview of the ethical considerations relevant to their work. Impact statement To our knowledge, this is the first time that the ethical implications of Tissue Engineering (TE) have been reviewed systematically. By gathering existing scholarly work and identifying knowledge gaps, this review facilitates further research into the ethical and societal implications of TE and Regenerative Medicine (RM) and other emerging biomedical technologies. Moreover, it will serve as a valuable resource and educational tool for scientists, engineers, and clinicians in the field by providing an overview of the ethical considerations relevant to their work. As such, our review may promote successful and responsible development of new strategies in TE and RM.