Researchers in this emerging field are no doubt motivated by the desire to alleviate the numerous disabilities and deaths incurred through tissue and organ degeneration. And their efforts are uniquely interdisciplinary, requiring the collaboration of experts in fields including biology, engineering, medicine, microscopic imaging, physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and robotics. At the same time, the tissue engineering enterprise entails the partnership of science and business, and promises to be a multi-billion dollar industry. The potential for profit is enormous. This ties in with the legal issues surrounding the patenting of cells and tissues that have potential commercial value.
Standard treatments have their share of risks and harms.
For instance, since using synthetic materials or else a patient s own blood vessels in bypass surgery is costly and poses the threat of thrombosis, the idea of engineering and applying vascular grafts certainly makes better sense with less attendant risks. The principle of distributive justice requires equity so that all potential patients have reasonable access to treatments. That is, the biomedical revolution in tissue engineering needs to be seen within the broader context of current genomic research. I offer the above as general domains where ethical concerns will most likely emerge. Now is the time to give them due consideration so that we can, hopefully, short-circuit some potential moral conflicts.