Bone and Facial Reconstruction

On the Horizon: Growing replacement facial bones in the lab for transplant to humans.

Timetable:
3–5 years, for clinical studies.

Soft Tissue

On the Horizon: Injecting soft tissue material to fill in defects, and combining donor stem cells from a bank or autologous cells with synthetic soft tissue material for repair.

Timetable:
1 year for clinical trials of the small-volume repair product; longer for the cell-based large-volume repairs.

Peripheral Nerves

On the Horizon: The Innerva team will work with Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures toward additional preclinical and clinical testing and commercializing the nerve repair device. Following completion of an ongoing preclinical primate study evaluating the drug delivery system, the team hopes to move to clinical trials.

Timetable:
An estimated 3–5 years for the conduit device, and 5–8 years for the drug delivery system.

Cellular-Level Technology

On the Horizon: Gene therapies, stem cell therapies and immunotherapies that can deliver treatments, promote tolerance to foreign bodies and promote healing.

Timetable:
5 years for gene therapies and vaccines; 5–10 years for stem cell therapies.

Heart

On the Horizon: New treatments or therapies to treat age-related heart diseases, or electrophysiology conditions, and to help protect astronauts’ health on long missions.

Timetable:
To be determined.

Vasculature

On the Horizon: Increasing the size and complexity of tissues that can be derived from stem cells. Creating 3D organs from a person’s own cells, or from donor cells that are compatible or that could be altered through gene-editing tools.

Timetable:
10 years.

Pancreas

On the Horizon: Medical implants that aren’t rejected by the natural immune system.

Timetable:
5–10 years.

Learn more about how Johns Hopkins researchers are bringing the benefits of academic discovery to the world: ventures.jhu.edu

Illustration by Stuart Briers