India’s top public healthcare establishment, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, is in talks with Ohio State University (OSU) to set up the country’s first comprehensive regenerative medicine facility. Regenerative medicine deals with the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage or congenital defects.

In partnership with OSU’s Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cell-Based Therapies (CRMCBT), this initiative will introduce a new discipline of medicine to India’s premier seat of academic medicine.  There is a substantial need for regenerative medicine in India,” sad Director Chandan Sen, Professor of Surgery and Executive Director of OSU’s Comprehensive Wound Center. Regenerative medicine involves injection of stem cells or progenitor cells, the induction of regeneration by biologically active molecules administered alone or as a secretion by infused cells and transplantation of in vitro or lab grown organs and tissues.

Dr. Amit K. Dinda of the AIIMS Department of Pathology is spearheading the project,  and said the focus would be on amalgamating various disciplines including stem cell technology, biomedical science, tissue engineering and material science. ”The demand is huge in India… one example is burns and acid attack victims.  We are working towards an alliance of physicians, surgeons and scientists.”

It will be funded by the India’s Department of Biotechnology and the Indian Council for Medical Research. Dinda explained that the establishment of such a center would also foster the debut of technologies such as 3D bio printing. “In addition, wound management, as in the case of bedsores and diabetic foot ulcers, is another part of regenerative medicine” said Dinda, also president of the Indian Society of Renal and Transplant Pathology.