The incubator has a very close working relationship with the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM). The incubator can make introductions and assist with a wide variety of collaborative engagements with the institute including: research agreements, facilities use agreements, introductions to tech transfer, and introductions to faculty. Please contact the incubator for more information.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is a leader in "bench to bedside" translational research. Using a multidisciplinary team approach to research, including clinically trained physicians and basic scientists, the Institute’s faculty, fellows, post-docs, and graduate students apply expertise in biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, nanotechnology, genomics, proteomics, and medicine. The Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative medicine has active research programs in:
- Tissue Engineering
- Cellular Therapy
- Healing Therapies
- Nuclear Transfer
- Stem Cells
- Nanotechnology
- Diagnostic Platforms
- Drug Delivery
- Biomaterials
- Molecular Therapy
- Cell/Tissue Physiology
- Systems Biology
The institute is widely recognized as a leader in the field of regenerative medicine.
- Created in 2004, the institute is directed by Anthony Atala, M.D. With 60,000 square feet of research space, the institute is the largest freestanding facility in the world devoted to regenerative medicine.
- Institute scientists are currently working to grow more than 22 different types of organs and tissues in the laboratory and to develop cell therapies for diseases such as diabetes and muscular dystrophy.
- Atala co-leads an $85 million project to apply the technologies of tissue engineering to battlefield injuries. Goals include engineering a human ear and developing technology to print skin directly on burns.
- More than 150 scientists are working together at the institute in the field of regenerative medicine. Approximately 100 full-time scientists representing numerous scientific disciplines and about 60 researchers from 33 different Medical Center departments collaborate on regenerative medicine research. The institute’s scientists come from 23 different countries.
- Physicians and scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are developing organs and tissues for virtually every part of the human body. The institute’s track record includes many "firsts":
- Developed biological strategies to enable certain human cell types that were previously thought not to be expandable outside the body to be grown in large quantities.
- First demonstration that complex tissue structures could be engineered using cells.
- Developed the first tissue-engineered product to go to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval for clinical applications, consisting of cells and biomaterials for injectable therapy.
- First in the world to use native acellular biomaterials in patients for the regeneration of tissues.
- Created the first full tissue-engineered organ. The institute is the only research facility in the world to have created a wholly laboratory-grown organ, engineered bladder tissue that has been successfully implanted in patients.
- Identified and characterized a new class of non-controversial stem cells derived from amniotic fluid and placenta, which show promise for the treatment of many diseases. These stem cells have been proven to differentiate into many tissue types, including blood vessel, bone, liver and muscle. A bank of 100,000 specimens could potentially provide 99 percent of the U.S. population with a genetic match for transplantation.