Regenerative medicine, regardless of the utilized platform, aims to restore normal structure and function following tissue injury. Stem cells and their natural or engineered products—collectively recognized as biologics—provide the functional components of a regenerative therapeutic regimen.
Autologous or allogeneic, resident or ectopic, the stem cells maintain
an autonomous self-renewal potential and respond to guiding signals to
differentiate into replacement tissues. By healing an injury, stem cells
have the capacity to cure the underlying tissue damage through de novo
formation of proper structure and function. Restoration of diseased
tissues offers a sustained therapeutic advantage in conditions ranging
from congenital disease to acquired, age-related pathologies. The
outcome depends on the aptitude of the stem cell population to secure
maximal, tissue-specific repair and the production of a nurturing niche
environment in diseased tissue that enables the execution of repair.

Beyond restoration of structure and function, regenerative medicine paves a pathway for prevention and delay in disease progression through prophylactic repair.
Stem cells provide a unique platform to select, guide, and engineer
cellular characteristics required for enhanced tolerance while
effectively treating and/or preventing disease manifestation. By
anticipating the needs of disease-susceptible tissues, the goal of
regenerative medicine becomes the repair of threatened tissues with
stress-tolerant cells to prevent irreversible damage. Pre-emptive
regenerative therapy requires the ability to predict disease
susceptibility based on molecular profiling at the earliest stages in
order to guide appropriate and timely stem cell-based interventions.