The EXPLORE pillar will establish the foundation for new targeted stem cell-based research activities.

EXPLORE focuses on understanding the role of stem cells in the development of the numerous cells and tissues in our bodies, how these cells can fail during the emergence of disease or what role they may play in tissue repair or replacement. This pillar is the core of reNEW’s Mission: identify and promote existing and new fundamental stem cell-based research projects to deliver innovative new therapies.

The research identified in EXPLORE will feed into our three product-focused targeted research pillars – reSOLVE, reBUILD, and reWRITE. It is this fundamental research in stem cell biology that will be critical to show how we may be able to use stem cells to treat disease.

Given the circular nature of knowledge creation, discoveries within the targeted research pillars will also inform what additional knowledge we need to seek within EXPLORE. As such, reNEW research is not linear, but circular.

All reNEW research teams contribute to EXPLORE, ensuring all our targeted research rests on stem cell research of the highest quality and at the cutting edge of the field.

EXPLORE’s main goals are to:

• understand how stem cell identity is determined and how a particular stem cell decides to specialise and ultimately differentiate from one cell type into another more specialised cell type,
• investigate stem cell development and response both to steady state (tissue homeostasis), disease and repair,
• build on the work generated in the two first goals to turn differentiated stem cells into complex tissue models, and
• develop new approaches to monitoring, quantifying, or manipulating the genetic information of stem cells.