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Regenerative medicine as a field focuses on new approaches for treating injuries and diseases using stem cells and other technologies, such as engineered biomaterials and gene editing. Researchers work to repair or replace damaged or aged cells, tissues, or organs and aim to restore tissue or organ structure and function using tissue engineering and biologics. NIAMS researchers studying regenerative medicine and its applications are focused on skin and musculoskeletal tissues such as bone, cartilage, tendon, ligament, menisci, muscle, and intervertebral discs. Regenerative medicine is highly interdisciplinary, and research approaches rely on collaborations between investigators in the life and physical sciences (e.g., engineering, materials science) to move the field forward.
Examples under this topic include the following.
Strategy 2.1: Exploring Fundamental Mechanisms of Regeneration
- Identifying and characterizing new genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms that drive and restrain musculoskeletal, cartilage, and skin regeneration.
- Dissecting repair and regeneration processes, including maladaptive repair responses such as fibrosis and sclerosis. This could include:
- Studying the mechanisms involved under healthy conditions, various disease states, wound healing, or recovery from traumatic musculoskeletal injuries or the controlled environment of surgery.
Strategy 2.2: Developing Strategies to Regenerate Tissues
- Designing biomaterial and scaffold-based approaches that can stimulate endogenous repair of tissues or support the viability and integration of exogenous cell therapies.
- Producing advanced physiologically relevant models and scalable and economic protocols to generate complex tissues from stem cells for studies of diseases of interest to NIAMS and for the generation of replacement tissue for use in regenerative medicine approaches.
Strategy 2.3: Translating Promising Tissue Regeneration Technologies Into Clinical Practice
- Developing models that provide new insights into how to facilitate regenerative versus reparative musculoskeletal and skin tissue regeneration in humans.
- Identifying and removing barriers to successful cell therapy delivery as treatment for people who have diseases within the NIAMS mission.
Other Research Priorities
Mechanisms in Human Health and Disease
Research detailing basic biological functioning has led to effective approaches to health maintenance and to disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Additional comprehensive research into molecular and cellular mechanisms is needed to further develop the knowledge base necessary for more targeted interventions.
Data Science, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, and Computational Biology
The vast amounts of data generated through NIH-funded biomedical research together with exponential advances in computing technology and power provide a unique moment of opportunity to use data science, AI/ML, and computational biology to cultivate knowledge and improve treatments.
Behaviors and Environmental Exposures
Determining how behaviors and environmental exposures affect the onset, severity, and responses to treatment of diseases within the NIAMS mission is crucial for improving the lives of all Americans.
Interventions
NIAMS will emphasize studies with notable potential to advance clinical management and the development of guidelines related to diseases within the NIAMS mission that are not likely to be funded by industry.
Health Disparities
NIAMS is dedicated to supporting research that will ultimately reduce or eliminate the disparity gaps in diseases and conditions within its mission, including development of approaches to enable access to health care that can contribute to every person’s ability to live long, healthy lives. Many of these diseases and conditions exhibit sex, racial, ethnic, and other disparities.