Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
numbers of people living to an older age will create more challenges
for social policy around pensions, housing, healthcare and aged-care
(McConnel and Turner, 2005). An ageing global population,
increased demand for anti-ageing technologies and changing
expectations about the impact medicine can have on the limits of life
highlight that there is significant potential for iPSC-based therapeutics
in this market.
For example, one commentator observes that anti-ageing
marketeers view the industry as 'recession proof' (Neilson, 2009:
357). A reduction in government expenditure on healthcare, the shift
of individuals from private insurance to public dependence and the
increasing costs of medicine are outcomes that are argued will have
a disproportionate impact on older populations (Neilson, 2009). Yet
the flip-side of this is a continual increase in the anti-ageing market
as population dynamics shift, ensuring that larger numbers of older
people who are interested in staving off the effects of ageing are
emerging (Neilson, 2009: 357). One might also argue that the
cultural values around anti-ageing in the advanced, industrial
economies will also ensure that people of all ages will be interested
in anti-ageing treatments.
Related to this increasing demand for anti-ageing treatments,
another possible commercial development for iPSC-based therapeutics
will be in on-demand treatments for replacement tissues and organs
as existing ones become worn out, damaged or diseased. Although a
long-way off this possibility, the idea that new organs might be easily
regenerated in a clinical setting is one possibility evoked by the
potential of stem cell science (Rosenthal, 2005). More than simply
viewed as an option for staving off some of the inevitable system
malfunctions that are a part of ageing, however, it might also be
envisioned that this treatment option will allow an increasingly more
flexible and commoditized view of the human body's resources as
infinitely replaceable (Harvey, 2010).
It is also conceivable that at the point where stem cell therapies
start to offer replacement whole organs and other body parts that a
new conceptualization of bodily health will start to emerge. In this
far-off scenario, the prevailing view of one's body as a precious
resource to be looked after and closely monitored for any signs of
