A year in RegMedNet 2018

Written by Freya Leask

In this article, Publisher Freya Leask reflects on a year on RegMedNet, highlighting trends, developments and popular posts.

In this article, I look back at the last 12 months on RegMedNet. From reaching 70,000 visitors and over 150,000 page views, to supporting our sister journal Regenerative Medicine sharing timely topics such as fake news and pay-to-participate clinical trials, we’ve been busy all year producing free content and helping you, our members, learn more about this ever-broadening topic.

Site development

In April, we launched our new homepage. Having more control over where and how posts displayed made it easier for us to showcase the new posts and videos that we thought you would most enjoy. Integrating live chat also enabled us to help our visitors in real time! We hope you’ve found this new look page easier to navigate and find interesting content, and value any feedback you might have on the site. There are already updates based on feedback we’ve received this year, coming soon in the new year, so look out for those!

“The timeliness of [the spotlights] demonstrates RegMedNet’s expertise in identifying industry trends and providing expert insight to support scientists and therapy developers.”

Throughout the year, we’ve also realized that in order to fully cover how regenerative medicine is increasingly being applied in modern medicine, a scope change — or expansion — was required. We’ve expanded our coverage of cell therapy, gene therapy and technologies such as CRISPR, ensuring RegMedNet is the only place you need to go to stay up to date with the latest developments in the field.

Conferences: bigger and better

This year, we attended more events than ever, including ISCT in London, UK, and ISSCR in Boston, USA. At all of them, we met members, reported on hot topics, and filmed and recorded interviews with key speakers and other experts. We’ve really enjoyed hearing about the kinds of posts you enjoy and your tips for what we should be covering.

“We’ve expanded our coverage of cell therapy, gene therapy and technologies such as CRISPR

We’ve upgraded our annual events list to this interactive calendar that can be synced with a Google Calendar! We’re also recruiting roving reporters to share their experiences of the events that we can’t attend ourselves. If you’re interested in contributing a conference report on an event you attended, or are attending, please get in touch today.

Spotlights

2017 saw three hot topics covered as 2 month-long ‘spotlights’ — features where we look at a subject in depth, surveying members to find out the challenges faced, interviewing opinion leaders and finally debating where the field could move in the future. The January spotlight on iPSC production featured Masayo Takahashi discussing the challenges of conducting human trials. The following spotlights covered cell therapy regulation and commercialization, coinciding with the release of new FDA guidelines on regenerative medicine and the first approvals of a cell therapy.

The timeliness of all these topics demonstrates RegMedNet’s expertise in identifying industry trends and providing expert insight to support scientists and therapy developers. Look out for next year’s spotlights on organoids, MSCs and nanomaterials.

#TalkingRegMed

Finally, 2017 saw the launch of our new video series: #TalkingRegMed. In each of the short videos in the series, I discuss hot topics in regenerative medicine with scientists and experts. So far this year, we’ve covered cell therapy for spinal injuries with Lauren Pulling, NeuroCentral, science communication and how to encourage more diversity in STEM with Fatumina Abukar, University College London (UK), and the challenges of processing MSCs for cell therapy within an interoperative time frame with Alice Philipson, University of Leeds (UK).

Topics for the next series include whether developmental biology has a place in regenerative medicine research and the effect of Brexit on the UK cell and gene therapy industry. If you have any ideas, or would like to discuss your research, please get in touch today.

2018 and beyond

That’s almost it for 2017! We’d like to extend a huge thank to everyone who read an interview, shared news on social media, left a comment or emailed in with feedback. As an organically growing community site, RegMedNet would not exist without you. We look forward to continuing to provide the useful and educational resource you know and love, and, with your help, will make it even bigger and better next year.