regenerative medicine

noun

Medicine that replaces or regenerates human cells, tissue or organs, to restore or establish normal function.

Meanings

nounregenerative medicine (countable and uncountable, plural regenerative medicines)

plural regenerative medicines

  1. countableuncountableMedicine that replaces or regenerates human cells, tissue or organs, to restore or establish normal function.

Origin

First coinage is widely attributed (incorrectly as it turns out) to William Haseltine (founder of Human Genome Sciences). From the work of Michael Lysaght (Brown University), his team "first found the term in a 1992 article on hospital administration by Leland Kaiser. Kaiser’s paper closes with a series of short paragraphs on future technologies that will impact hospitals. One such paragraph had ‘‘Regenerative Medicine’’ as a bold print title and went on to state, ‘‘A new branch of medicine will develop that attempts to change the course of chronic disease and in many instances will regenerate tired and failing organ systems.’’

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

regenerative medicine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/regenerative%20medicine

MLA

“regenerative medicine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/regenerative%20medicine. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “regenerative medicine,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/regenerative%20medicine.

Source: regenerative medicine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.