Fast Facts
Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Wake Forest University School of Medicine


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● With 60,000 square feet of research space, the institute is the largest freestanding facility in the world devoted to regenerative medicine.

● Created in 2004, the institute is directed by Anthony Atala, M.D. Atala and colleagues were the first in the world to implant laboratory grown organs (bladders) into humans and discovered a new type of stem cell in amniotic fluid and placenta. (Read more about our “firsts.”)

● Institute scientists are currently working to grow more than 22 different types of organs and tissues in the laboratory and to develop cell therapies for diseases such as diabetes and muscular dystrophy.  

● Atala co-leads an $85 million project to apply the technologies of tissue engineering to battlefield injuries. Goals include engineering a human ear and developing technology to print skin directly on burns.

● More than 150 scientists are working together at the institute in the field of regenerative medicine. Approximately 100 full-time scientists representing numerous scientific disciplines and about 60 researchers from 33 different Medical Center departments collaborate on regenerative medicine research. The institute’s scientists come from 23 different countries.

● The Institute is based at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (http://www.wfubmc.edu/), an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine, and Wake Forest University Physicians. The system is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report.