Regenerative Medicine
Multiple faculty are investigating cutting-edge approaches to replace, engineer or regenerate tissues and organs. Approaches encompass functional tissue engineering, molecular biology, bioreactors, biomechanics, cytomechanics, synthetic scaffolds, biomimetics, stem cells and mechanobiology to engineer living tissues.
This highly interdisciplinary research area within biomedical engineering takes advantage of the clinical expertise at UNC-Chapel Hill and the College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State University. Together with clinical collaborators, faculty address critical issues in regenerative medicine to best improve patient care.
Regenerative Medicine Laboratories
Advanced Wound Healing Lab
The Advanced Wound Healing lab is led by Dr. Ashley C. Brown. Our group’s research centers on developing novel microgel-based materials for a variety of biomedical applications, including augmentation of hemostasis, enhanced wound healing, evaluation and modulation of cellular mechanotransduction and development of biosynthetic constructs for regenerative medicine.
Magness Lab
The focus of research at Magness Lab is the genetic mechanisms that control intestinal and colonic stem cell maintenance and differentiation. The Lab uses the highly regenerative gut epithelium as a model system to understand how Sox-transcription factors control cell-fate decisions. The group has developed ‘gut-on-chip’ and high-throughput analysis platforms to assess the functional properties of single stem cells, multicellular organoids and biomimetic tissue constructs.
Regenerative Engineering Design (REdesign) Lab
The Regenerative Engineering design (REdesign) Lab focuses on the design and testing of bioengineered tissues capable of restoring tissue function. Our major goals are to harness the power of tissue-specific extracellular matrices to guide tissue remodeling and to understand and harness the interaction between inflammatory cells and bioengineered tissue constructs in order to improve incorporation and survival.