Manuel Figueruela  0:00  

Hi everyone, we are experimenting with new work due to the global pandemic. And we don't know yet how the new reality will affect our lifestyles, the future of the companies, and the market. But we have learned some important things. As for example, to give more importance to the personal relationships, our work holders, that even we have learned some older, very important aspects. For example, the importance of the science and regenerative medicine. I discovered the importance of science and their research, five years ago, when I became part of the Regemat 3D project. I had the chance to meet Jose Manuel Baena, the founder of the project, and he transmitted to me his solution about the research on the science applied to regenerative medicine. He's an engineer, but in 2011, he decided to reorient his professional career, with the main objective of applying all day to the science and research with the objective of improving the quality of life for patients.

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Manuel Figueruela  1:24  

We are working with research from worldwide. And our main objective, as I told you, is to improve the quality of life for patients. We in Regemat 3D, when I became part of the project, at this time of my life, I had to stay in a hospital and I could say, during the visit to the hospitals, that suffering is not only for the patients, but also for the families who are with them. And we are not exempt from this because the COVID-19 has demonstrated that at any time we could be in the hospital. Therefore, I think about the importance of the science and research in Regemat 3D, we think about the importance of the science and research. And do you think you’d believe me? Would you believe me, if I told you that our main objective is to improve the quality of life for a patient? And why not save lives? Thanks to science and medicine, we're increasing life expectancy. But which problem does it generate? For example, we’re increasing the percentage of the world population affected by diseases we don't have a cure for. For example, there is arthritis of the knee. If we could find a cure, we will of course improve the quality of life of patients. We are also faced with all their severe diseases, as for example, the different types of cancers and the fact that we live more each day. Therefore, there are fewer donors, but at the same time an increasing demand for transplants. Did you know for example, that cornea transplants are done from cadavers to patients? But if we don't have donors, do you know how many number of the patients will be increasingly on the waiting list for a transplant? 

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Manuel Figueruela  3:39

Can you imagine that we could find a cure for several diseases? Could you imagine that we can produce organs in the labs? At Regemat 3D, we are researchers and we work with and for their researchers with the objective of in the near future we can live in a world with solutions for all these problems. I have witnessed the success and achievements in science and research. As Aristotle said, hope is the dream of the awakened men. In Regemat 3D, we are designing and manufacturing 3D bioprinters and bioreactors, which allow us to print, for example, scaffolds and 3D knits with different types of cells depending on the tissue we want to regenerate. We can obtain aiding proteins, growth factors as structures that mimic the human living tissues, for example our cornea bone, we're also printing cartilage cardiac tissue.

Manuel Figueruela  4:46

The 3D bioprinting technologies are applied in several fields, for example, in tissue engineering, biomaterial development, and drug testing. In the drug testing field, we are covering the gap between the animal model and the human model. Because for example, we can print colon cancer tumors to test a drug directly against human tissue. Therefore, we are achieving, for example, to accelerate the development of new drugs, replicant trials, and the animal testing has no sense nowadays. In the site of the biomaterial development for example, we are functionalizing nanocellulose with graphene which is going to be used in the spinal cord regeneration, as conducive material. As I told you, we are researchers and we have in our lab, our own internal project related with spinal cord regeneration. And in the state tissue regeneration, we are present nowadays in more than 28 countries worldwide. We are collaborating with more than 300 research groups around the world. And we have some real success cases as for example, with the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Sydney, where we have achieved together to regenerate necrotic cardiac tissue. We are also printing abdominal images inside the operating room in the south of Spain, designing and manufacturing for each patient. And with the University of Grenada we have achieved to print cartilage. Here we have the results. 

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Manuel Figueruela  6:19

The green points are [unintelligible], the marker who has pressed the cells V-ability. Therefore, here we have chondrocytes. Here we have cartilage. And we are doing our clinical trials. We are working with the documentation from the patient, in this case, magnetic resonance, and we do the segmentation. With the results of the segmentation, the 3D bioprinter can print a scaffold with the same structure and dimension of the injury in the patient, and we can fill it with chondrocytes to regenerate the cartilage. Once we have the construct, we implant the scaffold inside of the knee of the patient. And in less than two year we are able to regenerate the cartilage and there is no rest of the used material because it is biodegradable and biocompatible. In Regemat 3D we don't have clients, we have collaborators, because together we will fulfill our dream of translating to the clinic the results from the research. I'm proud of being part of this project. I am proud of being able to part for  the science. I'm proud of this great team and this big family that makes all this possible. As I told you we are researchers we work with for their researchers, and together and through the worldwide Regemat 3D research community that we have created. With all our collaborators, we will achieve our objectives to improve the quality of life for patients and, why not, save lives. Thank you!

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