Repair, regenerate, and replace human body tissues
Regenerative medicine is an interdisciplinary field focused on the repair, replacement or regeneration of cells, tissues or organs.
The three main themes addressed by researchers in the Regenerative Medicine program are unique in the network of research centers financed by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé (FRQS):
Through cross-disciplinary and translational approaches, our teams are working to :
Better understand various pathologies
Offer innovative solutions for
Advance knowledge in a wide range of areas
The proximity of our researchers to the clinical environment encourages technology transfer to hospitals. We can thus provide real support to the clinic, and have a concrete influence on tomorrow’s medicine, and on the development of the biomedical materials business sector, by :
Officially formed in 2012 as part of the creation of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval, the program brings together different approaches in Regenerative Medicine and biomedical materials, and facilitates the convergence of several technological platforms. The program has given a concrete form to the collaborations, established several years ago, between teams at the Centre de Recherche sur les Matériaux Avancés de l’Université Laval (CERMA), the Centre de Recherche d’Organogénèse Expérimental de l’Université Laval (LOEX) and the Centre Universitaire d’Ophtalmologie (CUO).
Biomaterials comprise the whole range of materials that can be implanted in, and accepted by, the body to replace functions that organs lose over time. Examples include arterial stents, dental implants, hip prostheses and drug-eluting polymers and gels.
Biomedical materials also include tools and objects used in surgery, blood transfusions, oncology and disease diagnosis. They require a very high degree of compliance with the requirements of health authorities (e.g. blood transfusion bags, biopsy needles, surgical tools, catheters, etc.). Most of the teams in this theme are associated with the Centre de recherche sur les Matériaux Avancés de l’Université Laval (CERMA). Our aim is to impart innovative properties to medical devices to enhance their performance.
Most of our research activities are focused on the design and validation of new surgical approaches (vascular, orthopedic and oncology), including the development of permanent implants, inserts or minimally invasive biomedical technologies. A large number of projects is jointly funded by science and engineering research organizations, biomedical industries and health research funds. The theme is very active in patenting and licensing biomedical technologies resulting from their work.
Researchers in this theme use tissue-engineering methods to reconstruct three-dimensional tissues and use them for experimental and clinical purposes. Most of the researchers in this theme are associated with the LOEX Centre. In order to target the specific challenges of each tissue/organ, a team usually consists of a basic scientist, an engineer and a clinician. This approach has led to the development of numerous tissues/organs such as skin, blood vessels, heart valves, urological tissues, adipose tissue, peripheral nerves and bone tissue.
We are studying several aspects crucial to tissue reconstruction and physiological mechanisms: stem cells, vascularization, re-innervation, wound healing, cell-cell/cell-matrix interactions and their alignment. We are studying some of these tissues in clinical trials to verify their safety and efficacy in the context of tissue replacement in patients.
Reconstructed tissues also provide excellent human models for better understanding various pathologies, such as psoriasis, hypertrophic scars, melanoma, as well as nerve degeneration (ALS, Parkinson’s). These models are at the origin of internal, national and international collaborations to better understand cancer or immune reactions, for example. Our teams have a wide variety of human cells (normal and pathological tissues) in a bank of biological material.
Breakthroughs in Regenerative Medicine in this field are being made at a number of levels, including chemistry (development of new ophthalmic drug vectors based on gold nanoparticles), photobiology (toxicity of atmospheric pollutants, UV rays and blue light on ocular cells), biophysics (consequences of visual cycle protein mutations on photoreceptor degeneration), molecular biology (study of the molecular mechanisms of corneal wound healing or the development and dissemination of ocular melanoma), as well as the development of tissue-engineered models of eye diseases and cell and gene therapies to treat or prevent them. Clinical research completes this theme through work carried out by ophthalmologists at the Centre universitaire d’ophtalmologie (CUO).
The researchers in this theme possess a bank for ocular tissue, a bank for ocular fluid, as well as a clinical database and biological material of ocular melanomas that is almost unique in the world.
