This area of medicine comprises strategies that help improve the process by which organs and tissue renew and regenerate themselves following an injury or illness. The Institute wants to help discover and develop treatments, therapies, diagnostics and technologies that will alleviate the suffering of injured and chronically ill patients, all the while maintaining the highest ethical and medical standards.

The new research institute will be directed by Dr. Maher Atari. His research team, which he has led for 10 years, has established a protocol for isolating and identifying pluripotent-like stem cells in dental pulp (DPPSCs). These cells do not require genetic modification, as they have a stable genetic profile and a phenotype similar to that of embryonic stem cells. It has been shown that DPPSCs are capable of forming embryonic bodies and are able to differentiate in vitro in order to produce tissues with characteristics associated with the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm (osteoblasts, endothelial and muscle cells, hepatocytes and neurons).

About Dr. Maher Atari

Dr. Atari was born in Kuwait in 1972 and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine and Dentistry in St. Petersburg, as well as several Master’s degrees and postgraduate qualifications in Dentistry. He is a practising dentist and combines his private practice with research and teaching at the UIC. Dr. Atari’s favoured area of research has always been regeneration of bone tissue using adult stem cells taken from the dental pulp of the third molar. His time at the University of Minnesota’s Stem Cell Institute, the Centre for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) at the University of Navarra and the Molecular Biology Laboratory at Yonsei University in Seoul have made him a leading authority for young biomedical researchers.