Pasts, presents and futures of medical regeneration

How can medical humanities change how we think about, carry out, respond to and discuss medical regeneration? In a modern context, regenerative medicine is a major sub-field of biomedical research, described by the Mayo Clinic as a ‘game-changing area of medicine with the potential to fully heal damaged tissues and organs’. Based on techniques as diverse as stem-cell therapy and biomedical engineering, this branch of translational research has the potential to address challenges raised by ageing populations, stretched supplies of donor organs and chronic diseases.

This project will bring together researchers from across the medical humanities and biomedical sciences to examine what we can learn from past ideas and practices of medical regeneration, and how this might inform the social, cultural and clinical dimensions of regenerative medicine in the future.