Khorasan Razavi center of stem cells and regenerative medicine in Iran
EghtesadOnline: The governor of Khorasan Razavi stressed that the holy city of Mashhad was known as the center of stem cells and regenerative medicine of Iran.
“The province’ scientists have achieved a big honor in the stem cells field and this province is known as the center region in Iran. So we hope to see impressive improvement in the 3rd congress in 2019,” The governor of Khorasan Razavi, Alireza Rashidpour said in the opening ceremony of 2nd International Stem cells and Regenerative Medicine Congress which started today in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad.
“We had effective progress in scientific and technology bases by the efforts of researchers and we have seen the scientific growth of province and country quantitatively and qualitatively,” ISNA quoted him as saying.
The governor of Khorasan emphasized that the treasure was increasing the health of society by domestic production.
“The congress is managed by Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM), Medical Faculty and Academic Center Education, Culture and Research (ACECR). FUM is responsible for scientific section and ACECR is responsible for administration,” Rashidpour also announced.
“We will achieve our goals by attempts of scientists of province and cooperation of officials,” he said.
The Chairman of Council for Development of the Stem cell Sciences and Technologies Amir Ali Hamidieh said among Islamic countries, Iran has recently emerged as a pioneer in Human Embryonic Stem (HES) cell research.
According to Hamidieh, stem cell has found great interest in Iran as there are more than 44 active research centers, university departments and institutes across the country.
“During the last few years, Iran has consistently grown in nearly all scientific fields and achieved considerable success in producing science and developing technology. We have a dominant position in the field of Tissue Engineering in the region. Annual growth rate for the Iranian TE publications shows an organized steady pattern of growth,” he added.
“The government and scientific community have jointly started programs to create the scientific opportunities in the domain of Regenerative Medicine. Iranian scientists are able to investigate the properties and characteristics of HES cells with a much greater freedom than researchers from many other countries. Based on this progress the number of Knowledge-based companies raised from 3 in 2013 to 61 companies at the end of 2016,” Hamidieh went on to say.
“We have also gathered a data bank of the facilities from many universities and institutions to serve the applicants in needs of the variety of services across the country,” he said, “The council supported the Universities and Institutes to hold more than 35 seminars, symposiums, congresses and workshops in 2016”.
“Recent years have witnessed a progressive increment in the number of hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCTs) mainly due to the increase in the number of volunteer donors and development of cord blood banks after 25 years of HSCT experiences,” the chairman added.
“We have established 3 major institutes of Stem cell and Regenerative medicine in Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran according to our strategic plan and land logistic,” said Hamidieh, adding that “Establishment of Animal farm in Kerman and development of the Network of animal laboratories that allows all the students and researchers to utilize the professional services belongs to the in vivo preclinical studies, was started and supported by the council”.