E-TERM, Engineering Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Continued improvement in the nation's health depends upon the efficient development of affordable replacement human tissue and related therapies; an acute shortage of willing organ donors and the shortcomings of conventional therapies leads to the preventable death of many patients each year. The next healthcare revolution will apply regenerative medicines, creating biological therapies or substitutes for the replacement or restoration of tissue function lost through failure or disease. However, whilst science has revealed the potential, and early products have shown the power of such therapies, there is now a need for the long term supply of people properly trained with the necessary skills to lead the engineering and life science challenges before the predicted benefits in human healthcare can be realised. Realisation of these benefits requires a new generation of translational professional leaders immersed in both the fundamental science of these new products and the clinical, engineering and commercial realities of their creation and application.This proposal brings together for the first time the six University teams, and the associated growing cohorts of young researchers, involved in the two Regenerative Medicine DTCs funded through the EPSRC Life Sciences Interface Programme. Each University group is independently internationally leading in their field, and has attracted significant funding from the EPSRC Life Sciences Interface Programme and elsewhere. The proposed Landscape Award offers the opportunity to combine the research strengths of the six groups to deliver a strategic collaborative programme of cross-disciplinary research, and a cohort of future research leaders in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The proposed research programme is truly cross-disciplinary, requiring expertise that ranges from fundamental cell biology, through biological engineering, biomechanics and tissue engineering, to bioprocessing, regulated manufacturing, and commercialisation.