WFU’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine receives grant for production facility

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s plans to build a facility where engineered organs and tissue would be generated has received a boost from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.

The foundation is making a $250,000 grant to the institute at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center for the facility.

The institute has set as a goal the building of organs and tissue to treat wounded soldiers. It will work with the U.S. Department of Defense to help launch the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

“Bank of America is proud to support a cutting-edge endeavor that will benefit the emerging issue affecting wounded warriors in need of assistance,” said Dale Hall, Triad president for Bank of America.

Anthony Atala, director of the institute, an MD and a professor at Wake Forest, is a pioneer in the development of regenerative medicine.

“We are thrilled that the Bank of America Charitable Foundation has made this significant grant to the GMP facility, which will allow us to more quickly translate our research into therapies to help patients,” said Atala in a statement.

The facility would have to meet good manufacturing process (GMP requirements as set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is scheduled to open later this year at the Richard Dean Biomedical Research Building in Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem.