Regenerative medicine: stem cells – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Sat, 10 Jan 2026 10:25:53 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Regenerative medicine: stem cells – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 Replaceable You https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/replaceable-you/ Thu, 02 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=51706 The body is the most complex machine in the world, but what happens when the parts start to fail? Meet the scientists facing the challenge?

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‘Mary Roach offers a fascinating tour of the wonderful world of regenerative medicine.’  TIME, The Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025

Our bodies regenerate at a remarkable rate – our skin replaces itself every month, our blood every four. You can remove ninety per cent of a liver and it’ll still grow back to its original size (please do not try this at home).

Others – the brain, the heart, the eyes – are more complicated. These stay with us for life. So what do we do when they break down? For centuries, medicine has searched for answers – sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs and crafting eye parts from jet canopies. And as technology has grown ever more ingenious, so have our solutions.

In Replaceable You, Mary Roach sets sail on the uncharted waters of regenerative medicine, exploring the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings:

 

  • When and how does a person decide they’d be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb?

  • Is there a sensitive way to harvest tissue and bones from the deceased?

  • Which animals might be the best organ donors?

 

Through interviews with patients, physicians, pathologists, engineers and scientists, Roach immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable and surreal quest to build a new you.

‘Addictively readable… Don’t miss it.’ Deborah Blum, author of  The Poisoner’s Handbook

]]> The song of the cell https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-song-of-the-cell-2/ Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=35340 **Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2023**

A NEW YORK TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, ECONOMIST, MAIL ON SUNDAY and GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

From the dawn of life itself, every being that has ever lived owes its existence to the cell.

‘Will leave you in awe’ Guardian

The discovery of this vital form led to a transformation in medicine but also in our understanding of ourselves – not as bodies or machines but as ecosystems. It has also given us the power to treat a vast array of mortal maladies…and even to create new kinds of human altogether.

Rich with stories of scientists, doctors and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is a stunning ode to the building blocks of life and the cutting-edge science harnessing their power for the better.

‘Profound…As big a topic as life itself’ The Times

‘Medical magic’ Daily Telegraph

‘Vast…important…optimistic’ Mail on Sunday

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