[FROM THE LAB BENCH TO THE PATIENT - CAN INJURED SKELETAL TISSUES REGENERATE?]

INTRODUCTION: Regenerative medicine research has evolved significantly in recent years. There is a great un-met clinical need for developing new treatments that will induce regeneration of injured skeletal tissues in cases such as large bony defects caused by trauma or tumor resection, articular cartilage defects and torn or degenerate tendons and ligaments. Except for bone that can regenerate small defects, all other skeletal tissues do not hold the natural capability for regeneration after injury and rather form a less functional scar tissue. In order to induce tissue regeneration, it is now believed that three crucial elements must reach the injured zone: a) multipotent cells that can rapidly proliferate and differentiate to form the injured tissues, such as mesenchymal stem cells for skeletal tissues; b) extra-cellular matrix that will support the newly built tissues, and c) the correct molecular signals. Using diverse research tools and expertise, our department focused its research on basic, translational and clinical solutions for injured and degenerative skeletal tissues. In this review we will describe our different research directions, from in-vitro cell cultures and animal models studies to human clinical trials.