About
An Elite Institution in This Revolutionary Field
The Institute for Restorative Health at the Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discover and Innovation will be among the elite institutions in this revolutionary field of biomedical research with far-reaching impact for not just patients and their families, but for our society at large. Offering the potential to prevent, reduce and even cure chronic diseases at scale, restorative health directly addresses some of society‘s critical goals, from improving wellness and health, to participating in cost reduction, to reducing inequalities in access to care.
A Transformative Field
This utterly transformative field follows a path from single atom to DNA, to an embryo, to the whole of the human body, but represents a new fluidity among what were once thought to be more discreet stages of life. Breakthroughs in chemistry, physics, genomics, and computational science now enable scientists and physicians to manipulate biology to offer lifesaving treatments to patients suffering from disease and injury – treatments not just of the symptoms but of the root causes of many once intractable conditions like, Parkinson’s disease, Cerebral Palsy, Type 1 Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, cardiovascular disease, degenerative nerve / bone / joint conditions, and cancer.
Eliminating the Need for Lifelong Medication
The principles of restorative health techniques are not new – bone marrow transplantation, for example, has been saving lives for more than half a century – but technological advances over the last decade have vastly expanded the potential for restorative health techniques to help harness the power of patients’ own cells, or other therapeutic cells, to repair or replace damaged tissues in the heart and other organs, bones, or even the brain. Restoring fully functioning organs and/or repairing a defective biological process could lead to the elimination of the need for lifelong medication for countless patients.
The Restorative Health Clinic will be housed in close proximity to the research epicenter, allowing for the immediate application of these advanced cellular therapies. Slated to open at the end of 2020, the clinic will provide therapies targeted to restore structure and function of damaged tissues and organs by supporting the delivery of evidence-based, regulatory compliant regenerative medicine procedures while also conducting early stage FDA approved clinical trials.
Critically, these same researchers and doctors will also train medical students at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, located adjacent to the HMH-CDI, in these advanced techniques. The Institute for Restorative Health represents a truly unique confluence of talent and resources that will quite literally change the landscape of biomedical research, medical education, and the delivery of life-saving cellular therapies for patients, many of whom have exhausted all other available options.