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ABOUT US

What is Regenerative Medicine?

The Alliance is currently using the following definition of regenerative medicine:

Regenerative Medicine is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field in health care that translates fundamental knowledge in biology, chemistry and physics into materials, devices, systems and therapeutic strategies, including cell-based therapies, which augment, repair, replace or regenerate organs and tissues.

The National Institutes of Health define Regenerative Medicine (“RM”) as the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects. This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues and organs in the body by stimulating previously irreparable organs to heal themselves.  Regenerative medicine also empowers scientists to use stem cells to grow cells, tissues and organs to repair damaged or destroyed cells and tissue the body cannot heal by itself. Importantly, regenerative medicine has the potential to solve the problem of the shortage of organs available for donation compared to the number of patients that require life-saving organ transplantation.

Regenerative medicine holds the promise of transforming the way medicines are discovered and produced and the way health care is delivered.  It represents a new paradigm in health care that will meet unmet medical needs by focusing on the underlying causes of disease.  However, numerous obstacles hinder the field’s progress including: research challenges; access to capital; manufacturing; regulatory policies; and reimbursement.  For this field to reach its potential, a focused approach to identifying and overcoming scientific, regulatory, commercial, research and product development barriers, led by leaders in the research and business community, is essential.

Popular Science, not Science Fiction

Long held as a futuristic idea of medicine, regenerative medicine is now within our reach. The promise of regenerating tissue for organ replacement and bodily repair was featured on television in a “Dr. Oz” segment of Oprah in 2009 [Video: Dr. Oz’s Visit to the Tissue Regeneration Lab] and on CBS Sunday Morning in 2008 [Video & Article: CBS Sunday Morning: Re-Growing Organs].