Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) and the Future of Advanced Manufacturing and Regenerative Medicine

Dean Kamen is recognized as a force of nature for his ability to move an idea from the lab to the factory. Creator of the Segway and a number of medical devices, as well as the FIRST Robotics competition, his vision for bringing regenerative medicine to full-scale production led him to find the necessary resources and leadership that culminated in the creation of the Advanced Manufacturing Regenerative Institute/BIOFabUSA. Now there is a new focus in dealing with diseases by creating tissues and pieces of organs through 3D printing, utilizing both private and government funding.

In 2006, the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine was able to grow and implant a bladder into a human patient – the first time such a feat had ever been accomplished by using the patients’ own tissue where the cells were put back into the body after a 3D printer created customized scaffolding that enabled the process. Other feats from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are 3D printing an ear, bone and muscle structures and successfully implanting them into animals that became functional with a new systems of blood vessels generated.

As of 2016, there were 804 clinical trials underway, and research in the field of regenerative biology has continued with breakthroughs in cell biology, biofabrication and materials science in the last decades, These have laid the foundation for large-scale manufacturing and commercialization of engineered tissues and tissue-related technologies, including tissues- and organs-on-chip.

The Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) will hold its Winter Summit the first week in January, learn more at this link: https://www.armiusa.org/