A partnership between Mayo Clinic, Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco, will create a new center that offers regenerative medicine and rehabilitation resources nationwide.
Carmen M. Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation chair at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, and Michael L. Boninger, M.D., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation chair at the University of Pittsburgh, discuss the new center, which received an Alliance for Regenerative Rehabilitation Research and Training (AR3T) grant funded by the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the grant is to encourage growth of the field of regenerative rehabilitation through symposiums, online courses, sabbaticals and pilot funding opportunities.
CARMEN TERZIC: We are in the [INAUDIBLE] symposium of regenerative rehabilitation. And we are joined today by Dr. Mike Boninger, who is the professor and chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. And he has wonderful news for us about the new funding from the NIH that really will support the development of this field within the rehabilitational medicine. Dr. Boninger. MICHAEL BONINGER: Yes, so we have a new grant that was funded by NIH that is called AR3T, which stands for the Alliance for Regenerative Rehabilitation, Research and Training. And regenerative rehabilitation is a part of the field which deals with combining regenerative medicine and rehabilitation. So how can physical exercise promote stem cell function, and how can stem cells improve the function of our patients? And so this center, which Mayo Clinic is a part of, is a really exciting development. So in addition to Mayo Clinic, as you know, Stanford and Tom Rando is a Co-PI with me on this grant, and UCSF, University of California San Francisco. And the goal of the grant is to provide resources for the national community so that the field of regenerative rehabilitation grows. We will be offering continuing symposiums like the one we're at right now that Mayo Clinic is hosting. So each year, we're going to have a symposium for regenerative rehabilitation. We're also going to offer online courses, open courses that anyone can take. We'll have sabbatical opportunities, we'll have pilot funding opportunities. And internal to the grant itself, we'll be pushing the science by funding technology that helps advance the field. And so there will be more to come as we get together as a group and come up with these different requests for proposals and requests for people who want to be part of the sabbatical opportunities. And so everybody should pay attention to the web. I'm hoping that at some point if you search under AR3T-- there's "AR" and then "3T" for regenerative rehabilitation, research, and training-- that there'll be a ton of information on the website that people can then log onto and apply to the programs. CARMEN TERZIC: Excellent, so any rehabilitation provider or physician or therapist can apply. MICHAEL BONINGER: Absolutely. Actually, we want to appeal to clinicians, so physical therapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation physicians, neurologists-- people who are focused on rehabilitation, but want to learn more about regenerative medicine or do research in regenerative medicine. In addition, we want to appeal to a basic scientists who are doing regenerative medicine stem cell work, but haven't thought about the clinical application or want to look at how it impacts function. And so we actually want those two communities, we want to bring them closer together and we want all of those people to apply. CARMEN TERZIC: Excellent. So this is wonderful news for the rehabilitation field, and thank you, Dr. Boninger, to be with us today and give us this wonderful news. MICHAEL BONINGER: My pleasure.
