University of Pittsburgh
450 Technology Drive, Suite 300
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
www.mirm.pitt.edu
The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center established the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine to realize the vast potential of tissue engineering and other techniques aimed at repairing damaged or diseased tissues and organs. The McGowan Institute serves as a single base of operations for the university’s leading scientists and clinical faculty working in the areas of tissue engineering, cellular therapies, and artificial and biohybrid organ devices. The Institute’s mission includes the development of innovative clinical protocols as well as the pursuit of rapid commercial transfer of its technologies related to regenerative medicine. Also critical to the mission is the education and training of the next generation of scientists, clinicians and engineers. The Institute takes its name from the McGowan Center for Artificial Organ Development, which has been incorporated into the McGowan Institute.
Established: 2001 (McGowan Center for Artificial Organ Development in 1992)
Director: William R. Wagner, Ph.D.
Dr. Wagner is a professor in the Department of Surgery, with joint appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering. He is an active researcher in the biomaterials field. The University of Pittsburgh is renowned for its research on adipose-derived stem cells, which were discovered there in the 1990s by J. William Futrell, MD, and Adam Katz, MD, who were both on the plastic surgery staff at the time. The current chair of the university’s Department of Plastic Surgery, J. Peter Ruben, MD, is known for his work on tissue reconstruction with the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine.