Current fields of action

REGENERATE is intended to develop a “market place” character functioning as a mediator between research, clinic and industry thereby meeting the demands in the rapidly developing field of Regenerative Medicine and biomaterials. Currently 30 research groups from 10 European countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and France) are actively contributing to the activities of the network. These are structured in the various sections of the EEIG ranging from research, educational programmes to regulatory issues and public affairs.

REGENERATE serves as a platform for research projects. Currently, most of the projects initiated within REGENERATE are bi- or trilateral projects also involving industrial partners if appropriate. Mainly based on the calls for application as published by the European Commission (currently the seventh Framework Programme, FP7) the network as well as individual research groups organised in our network are discussing cooperation projects to contribute to the European Research Area. We also started to introduce our point of view, concerns and ideas into the wider European research community concerned with Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering by contributing to the European Technology Platform Nanomedicine (www.etp-nanomedicine.eu).

REGENERATE invites interested parties to participate in a working group on “Harmonization of Preclinical Requirements for Stem Cell Based Therapies – Challenges facing academia, small biotech & individual clinical applications”. The aim of this group is the development of an open access platform of basic and preclinical safety studies and protocols to allow academic researchers and small biotech to drive basic research to clinical application. These protocols aim to bridge what is often called the „Valley of death for preclinical research“ or referred as “Lost in translation”. (contact: Dr. JM Braun, regmednet@uni-leipzig.de; or T Faltus, timo.faltus@trm.uni-leipzig.de).

Strategic partnerships with miscellaneous companies provide a basis for the industrial platform to be enlarged aiming to support the translation of basic science into clinical application. 

The demand for new and intelligent medical products is growing and can be expected to open up new industrial and/or service fields also calling for specific educational programmes like a European Master Programme in Regenerative Medicine as initiated and currently being developed as a postgraduate part-time University Course within the network involving 9 universities from 5 European countries.