Given their unique regenerative abilities, stem cells offer new potential for treating diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Conventional treatments for patients have been based on either surgery or drug therapy, treating conditions and illnesses that result largely from ageing. Stem cell science can help doctors predict and prevent illnesses long before they occur and the North East is rapidly becoming a world leader in the field.

Durham and Newcastle Universities have come together with their related NHS Trusts and a range of other partners to form the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI). Their work looks at a range of stem cell types and scientists and clinicians are working together on developments that can be used in a real-life medical setting to transform lives.

Spin-out companies have already been created to develop the technologies and these are attracting industrial partners. These facilities will put the North East at the forefront of stem cell science nationally and internationally in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, human genetics, reproductive medicine, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical bioprocessing.

Large elements of the work are built upon the success of the International Centre for Life, in Newcastle, which has brought together different disciplines of scientists and clinicians with ethicists, social scientists, public educators and commercialisation agents.