EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative medicine is a high value field of healthcare with the potential to transform lives for the better. It covers a wide range of therapies designed to enable damaged, diseased or defective skin, bone and other tissues – and even perhaps organs – to work normally again. The regenerative medicine manufacturing sector seeks to translate these therapies to the clinic in sufficient quantity and in safe and cost effective ways to ensure the viability of the industry as a whole.

The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine is one of the few centres in the world providing academic and industrial translational research in regulated regenerative medicine manufacturing. The Centre is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The EPSRC Centre is a collaboration between Loughborough, Nottingham and Keele universities.

The EPSRC Centre:

• Creates next generation platforms for manufacturing regenerative medicines

• Tests and implements ideas in clinical and industrial settings

• Informs business models, policy and public debate

The EPSRC Centre works to equip the industry with manufacturing tools, technologies and platforms by considering the supply chain from end to end. We utilise a systems approach to draw together the many processes involved in transferring the right therapies to the right patient at the right time.

Key research themes in the EPSRC Centre include manufacturing and automation, characterisation and control and 3D products and delivery. The EPSRC Centre is complemented by a PhD programme between the same three universities – the EPSRC-MRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Regenerative Medicine – that will produce 100 PhD graduates by 2020.

The EPSRC Centre is developing a UK regenerative medicine manufacturing community through its national engagement strategy. Recent engagement activities have included holding the third annual regenerative medicine manufacturing summit for industrial collaborators, raising careers awareness among regenerative medicine early career researchers and leading a new schools programme engaging learners of ages 5-19 with the variety of science and engineering research underpinning the field of regenerative medicine.