UNMC makes regenerative medicine a focus
Regeneration of organs and tissue has been, until now, strictly the reality of science fiction - growing a new heart or liver in a petri dish or injecting stem cells to restore damaged tissue has long been a dream for many scientists.
Now, medicine is catching up with the imagination as researchers around the world use regenerative medicine therapies to help people live longer, healthier lives.
Researchers at UNMC have been pioneers in the use of peripheral stem cells and bone marrow transplantation to treat patients, but then-Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, MD, gave this area of research a boost when he named Nora Sarvetnick, PhD, the founding director of the Nebraska Regenerative Medicine Project.
"I'm hopeful this will become a new center of excellence at UNMC, allowing us to make an impact on a variety of diseases and lead to increased research funding from the National Institutes of Health," Dr. Maurer said.
As a stem cell researcher and professor of surgery and transplant immunology, Dr. Sarvetnick will move UNMC rapidly into regenerative medicine, one of the most important new fields in 21st-century medicine.
This new field involves innovative medical therapies that enable the body to repair, replace, restore and regenerate damaged or diseased cells, tissues and organs.
