The age-old question: to work on appearance or substance? We're a visual species, and it's inevitable that each new technology is evaluated as an aid to making us feel good about our looks. So too for regenerative medicine: "Stem-cell research appears promising for medicine and particularly for plastic surgery. Hair follicular stem cells, tooth stem cells and skin stem cells all show therapeutic promise ... These can restore hair to a bald man, teeth to those in need and skin to scarred patients ... In our society, there is such a huge demand for these rejuvenation surgeries, despite their significant risks, that the pragmatist in me cannot deny the likelihood that it will not be long before someone offers a two-stage procedure starting with liposuction followed by injection of these autologous stem cells for breast augmentation or into the face to rejuvenate." A reputable someone, that is - the disreputable and unsafe have been offering related procedures for a few years now.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/print?id=2674304