Rationale

Considering i) cells as the structural and functional units of tissues, ii) the body is continuously repairing and renewing itself to keep its life, regenerative medicine has been developed to promote self-healing when altered tissues and organs are not able anymore to do so. Regenerative medicine aims at providing transformative health solutions to cure untreatable and devastating chronic diseases instead of treating their symptoms. This innovative medical approach is particularly willing to appraise the optimal conditions that may help the body to regenerate, repair and/or substitute its altered tissues whether intrinsically and/or exogenously. If successful, such strategy could be applied to organs and tissues also altered by age, trauma as well as inherited defects. Optimal development of regenerative medicine requires deep interactions between highly skilled people with significant expertise in biology, chemistry, medicine, radiology, imaging, engineering, omics, computer sciences, and artificial intelligence. Several strategic approaches are currently designed to assist the diseased organs and tissues for healing as for instance tissue engineering, medical devices, as well as cell and gene therapies. Since 2000, more than 300.000 papers related to regenerative medicine and tissue engineering have been published worldwide according to Pubmed, which highlights the tremendous interest and activity in these fields.
Cell therapy is one of the most advanced fields of regenerative medicine with more than 19.000 clinical trials conducted so far, based on www.clinicaltrials.gov website. Cell therapy is administering living cells into the body as being widely applied in bone marrow transplantation and blood transfusion. Currently, new cell entities called advanced therapy medicinal products are under development to target different disease indications. The number of cell therapy approved products is augmenting and being able to treat more than a million of patients with unmet medical needs ranging from diabetes to cancer. The field of cell therapy is constantly progressing at ethical, scientific, clinical, regulatory and legislation levels as significantly noticed in leading countries like USA, Europe, Japan, and Korea.
Stem cells are non-specialized living entities of the body, from which all other mature and specialized cells are generated. These versatile cells have been reported to be present in most of the tissues although in small numbers. Stern cells can be of embryonic or non-embryonic origin. Embryonic stem cells display a pluripotent plasticity (ability to differentiate into all cells of the adult body) as compared to multipotent adult stern cells which can be isolated and collected from umbilical cord blood, fat, bone, dental pulp, heart, liver and additional other tissues, to produce specialized cells of the source of origin and/or a limiting number of other various cell types. Stem cells have been reported to maintain homeostasis and to actively substitute damaged cells post-injury via an advanced ability to self-renew and differentiate. Interest in stem cells is scientifically based on their potential to help understanding how diseases manifest, testing safety and efficacy of novel chemical entities, as well as developing appropriate stem-cell regenerative based therapy protocols.
Taking into consideration i) the decline of traditional drug discovery approach. ii) the current ongoing development of biologics' strategies and their adoption by pharmaceutical firms, and iii) the potential of regenerative medicine to generate tremendous economic growth in the near future as clearly seen in the countries that fostered related innovation, Moroccan Society for Regenerative Therapies (MSRT) organizes, in collaboration with the laboratory of Biological Engineering at the Beni-Mellal FST, its first international symposium on the topic. Stem cells: From Biology to innovative therapeutics, which will take place at the university of Sultan Moolay Slirnane at Beni-Mellal. Morocco, from 21st to 22nd December 2023. This event showcases a very attractive program that will broadly expose and discuss the major recent exciting advances but also limitations still facing a responsible and effective translation of stem cells. Thanks to a high-level panel of worldwide renown speakers and experts. this MSRT symposium will be a relevant opportunity for participants, to address the current landscape of the stem cells' field (both in Morocco and abroad) and to brainstorm on the design strategy related to the alignment of the perspectives of such innovative and future-oriented field with the health system expectations in the kingdom of Morocco.