The launch of a regenerative medicine hub at the University of Alberta (U of A) on Tuesday morning marked a major milestone for the post-secondary institute, but an even bigger milestone for patients waiting for “tomorrow’s treatments,” the hub’s leader said.
Announced at Edmonton Unlimited during Alberta’s Life Sciences Week, the regenerative medicine hub is a new initiative spearheaded by the U of A’s College of Health Sciences. It will act as an “interdisciplinary and collaborative community” working toward advancing regenerative healthcare through both research and commercialization.
“We have all the bits that are necessary to have a fully functional ecosystem, but we don’t always talk to each other.”
Regenerative medicine focuses on developing treatments for illnesses that repair the root causes of disease, rather than focusing on symptom relief. These treatments use natural or bioengineered cells, molecules, assistive devices, and the body’s own processes to explore treatments that heal and regenerate, or halt progression of disease. Things like stem cell research, tissue engineering, or transplantation are common areas of study within regenerative medicine.
Led by Dr. Anastassia Voronova, an associate professor at the U of A, the hub is a primarily virtual network that brings together biomedical researchers with stakeholders across the healthcare value chain—including economists, systems administrators, clinicians, regulators, and entrepreneurs—in the hopes of more readily advancing novel research toward clinical adoption.
The hub is built around three foundational goals: interdisciplinary integration, network development and training, and translation and commercial acceleration. The first two involve pairing biomedical researchers with adjacent industries like health economics, nursing, or health law, and from those integrations developing a network of industry partners to support the training of interdisciplinary teams that can address “complex health challenges.” The final goal hones in on the hub as a platform for enabling discoveries to move toward commercialization.
“It’s really meant to act as a bridge,” Voronova said. “It’s not just about developing a drug or a therapy, because you really have to think about it as an entire ecosystem to continue,” she added. “There are a lot of questions that need to be addressed, and the hub really brings everyone together.”
The U of A’s hub is one of several regenerative-medicine-focused organizations in Canada, joining peers like Toronto’s Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, or the pan-Canadian Stem Cell Network, which aligns researchers, clinicians, and entrepreneurs to specifically fund stem cell research. Still, Voronova argues the U of A’s hub is unique in Alberta.
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“There is no organized presence right now in Alberta that addresses regenerative medicine, research, and healthcare implementation,” she told BetaKit in an interview. She added that the hub has already seen interest in partnerships with researchers from the University of Calgary and the University of British Columbia.
“This is just the beginning of starting to reach out to other universities and individuals, but everyone is welcome here,” Voronova said. “This is a critical need in the [broader] Alberta ecosystem; we have all the bits that are necessary to have a fully functional ecosystem, but we don’t always talk to each other.”
According to the hub’s website, membership in the organization is open to anyone with research interests related to regenerative medicine, as well as U of A faculty, students, clinicians, and trainees.
Voronova said the hub has little funding to support its rollout as of now, but that it was actively looking for support, inviting both public and private entities to come to the table.
“This is Day 1, so what I would say is that we invite government funding, agencies, companies, researchers, and trainees all to the table. We really can’t address issues that are important to members if members don’t show up.”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtsy Jesse Cole for BetaKit.