New Director

Prof Stuart Forbes has been appointed as new Director of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM) at the University of Edinburgh.

He will succeed Prof Charles ffrench-Constant, who will step down as Director and focus on his research into nerve repair and remyelination. Prof Forbes will be supported by Associate Director Prof Dónal O'Carroll.

Prof Forbes is Professor of Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine at CRM and Consultant Hepatologist at the Scottish Liver Transplant Unit.

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His research group at CRM concentrates on understanding how the liver regenerates in chronic disease and how this process becomes deranged in the development of liver cancer. Over the years his work has resulted in many 4* high quality research publications, including a recent Nature Cell Biology publication (Sept 2015, Liver regrown from stem cells). Prof Forbes laboratory research has led to “first in human” clinical trials for liver disease. He led recent successful bids for a new Wellcome Trust funded ‘Tissue Repair’ PhD programme, a £6M MRC capital funding to build a ‘stem cell niche’ facility and with Prof Charles ffrench-Constant gained £10.7M funding for a new Centre for Tissue Repair.

The MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine was established in 2008 when ISCR scientists at the University's School of Biological Sciences joined efforts with their colleagues at the College for Medicine and Veterinary Medicine to form CRM, a unique cross-college initiative.

Upon his appointment Prof Forbes said:

It will be a great privilege to Direct the CRM, that in its short history has gone from strength to strength under the leadership of Prof Ian Wilmut then Prof Charles ffrench-Constant. They are hard acts to follow but I am excited by the opportunities for the CRM to deliver transformative research in regenerative medicine that will have a positive impact in the scientific and medical fields.