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Scientific Discovery and the Future of Medicine
April 14, 2015

Regenerative Medicine

Author Affiliations
  • 1Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
JAMA. 2015;313(14):1413-1414. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.1492

The Culture of Organs, a book published in 1938 by Nobel Laureate Alexis Carrel and well-known aviator Charles Lindbergh, described how organs could be kept “alive” in culture for months, with the intent to reuse them. Decades later, regenerative medicine, a field of science that aims to restore or establish normal function by replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues, and organs affected by disease, is becoming a reality. The field is a progression of previous efforts to restore function, ranging from prosthetics to organ transplants. Advances in cell biology, biomaterial science, and biological molecule discovery have led to new options for cellular therapies, engineered tissues and organs, and new strategies to stimulate endogenous repair and regeneration.

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