Dr. Anthony Atala, director, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
WINSTON-SALEM, NC – The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has inked collaborations with regenerative medicine institutes in Shanghai, China, and Tokyo, Japan. Both agreements have the goal of accelerating the translation of research into therapies that can benefit patients.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine scientists, under director Dr. Anthony Atala, were the first in the world to implant laboratory-engineered organs into patients and today are working to engineer more than 22 different organs and tissues in the lab and developing cell therapies to restore organ function.
We’ve been covering biotechnology and medical advances for more than a decade. We think regenerative medicine, which may one day let doctors replace vital organs or parts of them with functioning replacements grown from the patient’s own cells, is one of the most promising technologies in development.
“Because the need for new therapies knows no boundaries,” said Atala, “we are committed to partnering with scientists from around the world to solve tough challenges and make advances to benefit patients.”
Each of the two institutes in the collaboration are also known for their advances in the field.
The Shanghai Tissue Engineering Center is recognized for its developments in musculoskeletal regenerative medicine, with products and technologies now in clinical trials relating to the regeneration of tissues for orthopedics and cranio-maxillofacial medicine.
The Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science in Tokyo has developed a technology to engineer sheets of cells in the laboratory that can be transplanted into diseased areas for the functional restoration of tissues and organs.
The technology, known as CSTEC, is currently being evaluated in clinical trials in Europe for regenerating cornea tissue.
All three institutes have been successful in developing clinical therapies and have technologies that have been licensed to companies with the goal of making them more widely available to patients. In addition, all institutes receive major funding from their respective governments for their research and development programs.
