The 12° Congress of The Transplant Society organized at University of Milan in July 2013, involved International Opinion Leaders in a strong commitment dedicated to sharing know how and expertise in cell therapy and regenerative medicine, supporting international alliance and developing therapies for human diseases.
The Congress was attended by 230 participants from 25 different countries. An outstanding set of 35 invited speakers with various expertise covered all field of regenerative medicine and a total of 140 abstracts were accepted (69 as Oral Presentation).
The scientific program covered different aspects of regenerative medicine and cell transplantation with a deeply analysis of the recent successes, the clinical perspective and the relative regulatory issues. The program analyzed nr.6 specific focus on nr.6 different organs: liver, pancreas, kidney, nervous systems, heart and musculoskeletal system. For each focus were introduced the most recent and available cell therapies for muscular dystrophy, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, acute liver failure and metabolic liver diseases. Furthermore, the program introduced new results about the possibility to repair with cell transplant, heart tissue, kidney and the central nervous system.
The Educational session focused on therapeutic approach of single organs and tissue was supported with nr. 4 plenary sessions of general and transversal topic about regenerative medicine and cell transplant. In these context, we considered the new stem cell source such as amniotic fluid and adipose tissue and adopted new strategies to transform the somatic cells in cells with the same stem cell potential. Another specific focus was on the mesenchymal stem cells and their role in human diseases.
Today, the human cell transplant has critical issues about the immune systems activation and during the Congress we analyzed the limitations of the available therapies, the role of the inflammatory response during the tissue remodeling and the new therapeutic strategies for the immune response modulation. Finally, we discussed three current scientific topics with a special potential in the clinical practice: the combination of gene therapy and stem cell therapy, the use of animal cells as alternative source of the human cells and the use of stem cells in cancer therapy.