Our research
reNEW's vision is to create a new generation of effective, safe, and socially sustainable stem cell-based therapies built on an international collaboration of excellence in biomedical research. At the same time, the center aims to create an environment where excellence flourishes, producing high profile, quality fundamental discoveries that not only inspire new medical technology, but push the boundaries of our current knowledge base. We hope that delivering such innovative stem cell-driven therapies will transform the lives of people with incurable disease, while our scientific excellence will drive the training of a new generation of stem cell scientists.
To achieve this vision, reNEW scientists aim to deliver not only research excellence but also utilise their knowledge and discoveries in stem cell science towards specific targeted outcomes within stem cell medicine. This will move ideas and discoveries along the value chain closer to proof of concept and hence translation into clinical and commercial outcomes. reNEW has defined the following research themes, each of which addresses a specific challenge.
The research themes of reNEW
EXPLORE the processes of development, tissue turnover, repair and disease to understand at the cellular and molecular level how stem/progenitor cells form the many cell types of the body in vivo, how this process can be regulated and how isolated stem cells can be employed to recreate specific cell and tissue types in vitro.
reSOLVE the basis of disease using stem-cell derived human tissue models. The growing cost of drug development pipelines rests with drugs that fail at Clinical trial. Stem cell-based modelling of human tissues provide the opportunity to improve the drug discovery pipeline by enabling accurate early toxicity testing and delivering personalised readouts of drug response. As a result, activities within reSOLVE will change the paradigm of
conventional drug development.
reBUILD damaged tissues using stem cell based cellular therapies and engineered tissues. Stem cell-based therapies have the potential to deliver treatments for currently untreatable chronic disease with the stem cell themselves representing the product.
reWRITE the genome of stem cells to provide new cellular functions. At the intersection of gene therapy and cell therapy, the ability to edit the genome of a stem cell to deliver a novel function or repair an inherited defect has the potential to provide therapies for currently incurable rare disease.
PREPARE the community for novel stem cell-based products by investigating the ethical, social, regulatory, and economic barriers.