New center to study tissue regeneration advances

U-M is one of 10 institutions selected by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to establish a center to study the application of advances in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to the treatment of oral tissue anomalies.

The Michigan Regenerative Medicine Resource Center is being led by School of Dentistry Professor William Giannobile and College of Engineering Professor David Kohn. “The center will transform how clinicians in the not-too-distant future repair, reconstruct and regenerate dental, oral and craniofacial anomalies due to injury or disease,” Giannobile said. Crucial to achieving that objective, Kohn noted, will be assembling teams of specialists in dentistry, medicine, biology, materials science, technology and other fields from across the university, industry and private practice. “Our teams will take promising discoveries and provide the resources to advance [those discoveries] to apply them more quickly than in the past.” This approach, he added, is uniquely suited to Michigan’s broad scientific, clinical and engineering strengths, and its interdisciplinary culture.

“The center will transform how clinicians in the not-too-distant future repair, reconstruct and regenerate dental, oral and craniofacial anomalies due to injury or disease.”

– School of Dentistry Professor William Giannobile

Among the groups that will assist the Michigan Regenerative Medicine Resource Center in its work will be the Harvard University’s Wyss Institute, a multidisciplinary research institute that specializes in developing new materials with applications in health care, manufacturing and other areas, and the McGuire Institute in Houston, which focuses on delivering clinical applications based on research using new or improved technologies.