REGENERATIVE MEDICINE – INITIATIVE À LA CARTE A remedy to the blood thirsty count Dracula?

Transylvania, splendidly played by the late Béla Lugosi, was maintaining himself with repeated blood meals. Due to the limited lifetime of red blood cells he needed this form of substitution therapy over and over again. It was not known then that transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells would have provided a permanent cure. To protect European Union citizens from such bad, not to say deadly, table habits, the Strasbourg-based European Science Foundation has recently activated a program solely dedicated to Regenerative Medicine, REMEDIC. Early attempts to regenerate tissue were done by the former generation scientist Victor Frankenstein and results have been widely publicized. He used extensive transplantation and implantation, but as the rules of modern regenerative medicine were not followed and the powers of the stem cells had not been revealed yet, the outcome, ‘the Creature Frankenstein’, fell far from a perfect creature although many of us find him quite sympathetic—at least on the white screen. Let us check how Regenerative Medicine is seen in EU as that provides some idea about the impetus and impact of this field of study in European science. Indeed, the 7 EU Framework program will probably soon announce not less than three large-scale integrating actions in this field: (1) Cell therapy for tissue and organs. (2) Regeneration of tissue using biocompatible materials and cells. (3) Activation of endogenous cells as an approach to regenerative medicine. This is quite remarkable as each of these actions will probably be funded with M 12 million. REMEDIC forms an excellent platform for such an application as the scientists participating in the action are involved in several clinical trials aiming to clinical transfer of already established findings and there is also a considerable input from former FP7 calls into this action. The Steering Board is open for participation from research-active basic and clinical scientists and commercial companies in this field, also from non-committed countries. What does ‘non-committed’ mean in this context? European Science Foundation run Research Networking Programs work according to à la carte principle. All EU membership and associated countries get ‘the menu’ and either they pick up their choice – or they do not. If they make a selection, they naturally are ready to pay for it, too. As the ‘chef’ was a Finn, much to our regret, Italy REGENERATIVE MEDICINE INITIATIVE À LA CARTE