In my laboratory, we spend many years looking
at stem cells and how we can talk to stem
cells with biomaterials, and push them in one
way or another.
Now we're thinking that stem cells are actually
a little bit later in the healing process,
and we see the immune system as a key orchestrator
in setting the right environment for future repair.
One of the things I noticed in the field was
that there was this great promise of providing
so much for patients but it was taking so
long to get to the clinics, so we wanted
to really focus on delivering these
technologies to people.
With that concept we built the 
Translational Tissue Engineering Center.
All of the faculty have some initiative that's
directly targeting translational therapies.
My research works on repairing damaged, lost,
or diseased tissues in the body.
We're trying to rebuild these tissues.
Now we are looking at engaging the immune
system, the first responder to an injury,
to be able to rebuild tissues.
So we're excited about expanding the regenerative
medicine capability to degenerative diseases.
Not only being able to rebuild tissues that may be lost due to trauma or a congenital
abnormality, but in the challenges of aging
and tissue degeneration, is there a way that we
can use the immune system and redirect it
so that we can not only stop the degenerative
processes and a number of really devestating
diseases, but actually be able to rebuild.
We have people who are really excited about
what they're doing, and I think that's an
energy that you can feel at multiple levels.
We are using the body's natural capacity for
repair and engaging with the immune system
to help rebuild tissues in the body.
