Regenerative medicine has emerged over the last two decades as one of the most rapidly developing fields in medical science, demonstrating unprecedented potential to restore severely damaged or destroyed tissue and even “grow” new tissue in its place. Although the most advanced research, both laboratory and clinical, is taking place in well-financed high-tech settings—including centers in China, India and Brazil—Cuba is one of a handful of other developing countries—along with Argentina, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, and Malaysia—producing regenerative therapies suited to the needs and capacity of their health care systems.[1]

Dr Porfirio Hernández has been at the forefront of the field in Cuba, helping pioneer stem cell research at the Hematology and Immunology Institute in Havana, where he has worked in internal medicine and hematology as clinician and researcher since the 1970s. In this interview with MEDICC Review, he discusses Cuba’s regenerative medicine program, particularly development of a simplified method of obtaining adult mononuclear stem cells using existing resources at moderate cost to the national public health system.

The Sports Medicine Institute (abbreviated in Spanish as IMD) in Havana is a hub of energy concentrated on the health and training of the nation’s top athletes. While fencing teams, wrestlers and judokas work out in one building, a multidisciplinary staff keeps office hours next door for athletes, retired athletes, their families and others referred to their services. And not just “office” hours: everyone at the IMD, including doctors, seem to put physical activity into practice, moving in and out of hallways, up and down stairs, and along pathways between buildings and outdoor training areas, as if keeping pace with the young athletes in the lead.