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Regenerative Medicine

Section edited by Francisco Silva

The field of regenerative medicine encompasses various strategies such as the use of materials and biologics to take the place or remodel compromised tissues, both structurally and functionally, in order to facilitate tissue healing. 

The ability to remodel tissue and organ microenvironments damaged by age, disease, or trauma has a tremendous impact on the current standard of care in treating patients suffering from various diseases. Over the past two decades, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has emerged as an exciting path towards therapies.  An improved understanding of how age, environmental factors and the various stages of disease progression and their impact on the innate regeneration will also likely be important in advancing the field.

The section encourages contributions aimed at advancing the research and development and clinical translation in the field, and welcomes submissions of studies aimed at advancing the various technologies that encompass regenerative medicine, which ultimately will aid in the development and translation of novel therapies for those suffering from unmet medical needs.

  1. Loss of nucleus pulposus (NP) cells is as one of the primary factors initiating intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration (IVDD); however, the intrinsic physiological mechanisms of endogenous NP-derived stem cell...

    Authors: Lu-Ping Zhou, Liang Kang, Zhi-Gang Zhang, Chong-Yu Jia, Chen-Hao Zhao, Xian-Liang Zhang, Hua-Qing Zhang, Ren-Jie Zhang and Cai-Liang Shen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:514
  2. Intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) is a leading cause of chronic low back pain, characterized by extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation, excessive inflammation activation, and increased cell apoptosis. LG...

    Authors: Fudong Li, Yangyang Shi, Jun Chen, Jingchuan Sun, Jiangang Shi, Kaiqiang Sun and Bing Zheng
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:475
  3. Spinal cord injury (SCI) remains a devastating central nervous system disorder. The complex pathological microenvironment following SCI, particularly the imbalance in neuroinflammation, contributes to its ther...

    Authors: Xinwei Zhang, Tao Liu, Ziqian Ma, Guanghao Li, Nan Ding, Zihang Wang, Yun Guan, Yan Zhang, Liang Liu and Xueming Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:437
  4. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by brain damage and functional impairment caused by external forces. Under the influence of multiple mechanisms, TBI can cause synaptic dys...

    Authors: Ming-wei Liu, Hua Li, Gui-fei Xiong, Bin-ran Zhang, Qiu-juan Zhang, Shu-ji Gao, Yan-lin Zhu and Lin-ming Zhang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:427
  5. Mitochondria play a critical role in oxidative stress (OS)-induced neuronal injury during ischemic stroke (IS), making them promising therapeutic targets. Mounting evidence underscores the extraordinary therap...

    Authors: Mengke Zhao, Jiayi Wang, Shuaiyu Zhu, Shensen Zhang, Chao Han, Chengcheng Tan, Yubing Huang, Zhaokai Sun, Liang Wang and Jing Liu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:402
  6. Osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) facilitated by mechanical loading is a promising therapy for disuse osteoporosis (DOP), however, it is difficult to implement mechanic...

    Authors: Da Zhong, Xi Li, Zhen Yin, Peng Chen, Yusheng Li, Jian Tian, Long Wang, Hua Liu, Ke Yin, Lemei Zhu, Lingyu Kong, Kunli Chen, Yaochun Li, Chungu Hong and Chenggong Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:376
  7. Interventions that promote the proliferation of endogenous neural stem cells (ENSCs) and induce their differentiation into neurons after spinal cord injury (SCI) hold significant potential for SCI repair. Tans...

    Authors: Wenqing Zhong, Luchun Xu, Guozheng Jiang, Yushan Gao, Jiawei Song, Yukun Ma, Guanlong Wang, Jiaojiao Fan, Wenhao Li, Shibo Zhou, Yongdong Yang and Xing Yu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:367
  8. Managing large bone defects remains a significant clinical problem. We enhanced the osteogenic activity of the induced membrane (IM) by incorporating bone marrow fluid, leading to spontaneous osteogenesis (SO)...

    Authors: Qudong Yin, Xueming Chen, Shihao Du, Xuming Wei, Yongwei Wu and Fanyu Bu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:239
  9. Intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) is the leading cause of low back pain, and repair using nucleus pulposus-derived mesenchymal stem cells (NP-MSCs) represents a promising therapeutic approach. However, b...

    Authors: Xu Yan, Jing-Yu Ding, Ren-Jie Zhang, Yan-Xin Wang, Lu-Ping Zhou, Hua-Qing Zhang, Liang Kang, Chong-Yu Jia, Xiao-Ying Liu and Cai-Liang Shen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:232
  10. Intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) is a significant cause of global disability, reducing labor productivity, increasing the burden on public health, and affecting socio-economic well-being. Currently, the...

    Authors: Shaofeng Chen, Wei Zhang, Yifan Liu, Runzhi Huang, Xiaoyi Zhou and Xianzhao Wei
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:227
  11. spinal cord injury (SCI) disrupts the gut microbiota, worsening the injury’s impact. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is increasingly recognized as a promising strategy to improve neural function post-SC...

    Authors: Huan Xie, Hui Zhang, Liyi Zhou, Junjie Chen, Shun Yao, Quanxin He, Zhizhong Li and Zhilai Zhou
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:210
  12. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a crucial role in cell differentiation through epigenetic regulation of gene expression. In human dental pulp cells, we have identified miRNA-27a being upregulated under inflammatory co...

    Authors: Ziniu Yu, Nobuyuki Kawashima, Keisuke Sunada-Nara, Shihan Wang, Peifeng Han, Thoai Quoc Kieu, Chunmei Ren, Sonoko Noda, Kento Tazawa and Takashi Okiji
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:189
  13. Lung disorders rank among the leading causes of mortality worldwide, presenting a critical challenge in healthcare. The underlying limited regenerative capacity of the lung makes this an unmet clinical need, o...

    Authors: Danial Khayatan, Peyman Esmaeili Fard Barzegar, Arooj Fatima, Tayyaba Sattar, Ambreen Zahid, Syeda Aiman Batool, Mehreen Jabbar, Maryam Mureed, Fatima Haider, Aymun Javed Butt, Sana Hanif, Alexander Seifalian and Hamid Tebyaniyan
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:154
  14. Regeneration plays a key role in energy recycling and homeostasis maintenance. Planarians, as ideal model animals for studying regeneration, stem cell proliferation, and apoptosis, have the strong regenerative...

    Authors: Ang Liang, Jinglong Liu, Zhiyuan Zhang, Jing Xiao, Dezeng Liu, Zimei Dong and Guangwen Chen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:137
  15. Rotator cuff injury (RCI), characterized by shoulder pain and restricted mobility, represents a subset of tendon-bone insertion injuries (TBI). In the majority of cases, surgical reconstruction of the affected...

    Authors: Junjie Chen, Zihe Wang, Ming Yi, Yi Yang, Mengzhao Tian, Yinqi Liu, Guoyou Wang and Huarui Shen
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:47
  16. Nowadays, extracellular vesicles (EVs) such as exosomes participate in cell-cell communication and gain attention as a new approach for cell-free therapies. Recently, various studies have demonstrated the ther...

    Authors: Mojdeh Salehi Namini, Nima Beheshtizadeh, Somayeh Ebrahimi-Barough and Jafar Ai
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2025 23:6
  17. Spinal cord injury (SCI) inflicts a severe burden on patients and lacks effective treatments. Owing to the poor regenerative capabilities of endogenous oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) following SCI, the...

    Authors: Yubo Zhang, Zhibin Peng, Man Guo, Yangyang Wang, Jingsong Liu, Yishu Liu, Mi Li, Tianli Wei, Pengfei Li, Yingwei Zhao and Yansong Wang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:1118
  18. Human bone marrow is a source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), other progenitor cells, and factors with anti-inflammatory and regenerative capacity. Though the fraction of MSCs out of the nucleated cells is v...

    Authors: E. Mormone, L. Savastano, G. Rossi, F. Maruccia, G. Di Maggio, N. P. Sinisi, M. Sandri, M. Copetti, E. De Santis, V. Guerra, G. Biancofiore, C. Cisternino, E. Caradonna, P. Graziano and F. L. Gorgoglione
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:1101
  19. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been proposed to treat osteoarthritis (OA) for many years. However, clinical outcomes have been inconsistent due to biological variation between patients, differences in tiss...

    Authors: Houyi Sun, Haoxin Zhai, Kaifei Han, Heran Ma, Yi Tan, Shihao Li, Zhicheng Liu, Lei Cheng, Qunshan Lu, Libo Zhou and Peilai Liu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:1039
  20. Angiogenesis is essential for repairing critical-sized bone defects. Although adipose-derived stem cell (ADSC)-derived exosomes have been shown to enhance the angiogenesis of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs...

    Authors: Le Cao, Kai Sun, Ran Zeng and Haitao Yang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:1009
  21. Orthopedic implants have faced challenges in treating bone defects due to various factors, including inadequate osseointegration, oxidative stress, bacterial infection, immunological rejection, and poor indivi...

    Authors: Xiankun Liu, Chao Zhou, Qiong Xie, Linying Xia, Lu Liu, Wenwen Bao, Hongming Lin, Xiaochun Xiong, Hao Zhang, Zeping Zheng, Jiayi Zhao and Wenqing Liang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:1001
  22. Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) significantly impacts young and middle-aged adults, with steroid use implicated in many cases. Traditional treatments have limited efficacy, prompting a shift towards i...

    Authors: Tingyu Wu, Yinxue Zhou, Weipeng Shi, Sijia Guo, Hua Tian, Weiyan Li, Yingzhen Wang and Tao Li
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:982
  23. Mechanical unloading-induced bone loss threatens prolonged spaceflight and human health. Recent studies have confirmed that osteoporosis is associated with a significant reduction in bone microvessels, but the...

    Authors: Liqun Xu, Lijun Zhang, Gaozhi Li, Xiaoyan Zhang, Quan Sun, Zebing Hu, Xinsheng Cao, Yixuan Wang, Fei Shi and Shu Zhang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:811
  24. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) show promise as a treatment for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) by reducing inflammation and promoting chondrogenic differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells...

    Authors: Kangping Song, Jing Hu, Ming Yang, Yong Xia, Chengqi He, Yonghong Yang and Siyi Zhu
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:741
  25. The traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) can cause immediate multi-faceted function loss or paralysis. Microglia, as one of tissue resident macrophages, has been reported to play a critical role in regulating in...

    Authors: Penghui Li, Junlong Zhao, Yangguang Ma, Liang Wang, Shiqian Liang, Fan Fan, Tiaoxia Wei, Lei Feng, Xueyu Hu, Yiyang Hu, Zhe Wang and Hongyan Qin
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:724
  26. Inadequate nerve regeneration and an inhibitory local microenvironment are major obstacles to the repair of spinal cord injury (SCI). The activation and differentiation fate regulation of endogenous neural ste...

    Authors: Cong Xing, Song Liu, Liyue Wang, Hongpeng Ma, Mi Zhou, Hao Zhong, Shibo Zhu, Qiang Wu and Guangzhi Ning
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:723
  27. Aging is a multifaceted process that affects all organ systems. With the increasing trend of population aging, aging-related diseases have resulted in significant medical challenges and socioeconomic burdens. ...

    Authors: Lu Wang, Zihui Deng, Yun Li, Yiqi Wu, Renqi Yao, Yuan Cao, Min Wang, Feihu Zhou, Hanyu Zhu and Hongjun Kang
    Citation: Journal of Translational Medicine 2024 22:722