The IUPUI School of Science will use a $1.6 million grant awarded by the 21st Century Research and Technology Fund to move regenerative biology into the drug discovery pipeline. The grant will be used during the next two years by the IU Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine to study the body’s ability to regenerate its own cells in eye, spinal cord and limb tissue.

The School of Science is taking a unique approach to identifying genes and proteins that are either permissive or inhibitory to the regeneration of tissues. The findings of the study will provide answers to help induce the regeneration of non-regenerating tissues by pharmaceutical means rather than stem cell transplant therapies. Essentially, the study will provide answers for ways to help the human body produce its new cells after injury.

Currently, treatment and rehab for patients with tissue damage costs the health-care system in the U.S. an estimated $500 billion a year. Eventually, regenerative medicine will complement organ transplants and bionic implants as methods to restore structure and function of damaged tissue, helping to reduce health-care costs across the board.

http://www.newscenter.iupui.edu/newsreleases/21_century_grant_04.htm