About the Bell Center
The Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering was established in 2010 through the extraordinary leadership gifts of Millicent Bell and John and Valerie Rowe. Research in the Bell Center is intended to elucidate the molecular, genetic and cellular mechanisms underlying the growth and replacement of highly differentiated tissues during development, physiological turnover and repair following injury. These processes are critical to human health and biology and have been the focus of elegant studies in a myriad of model organisms at the Laboratory since the pioneering work of MBL scientists Thomas Hunt Morgan and Jacques Loeb.
Utilizing unique and highly tractable marine and aquatic model organisms, high throughput and comparative genetic approaches, novel imaging technologies and the latest advances in data-intensive computational analysis, scientists in the Bell Center, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory, are providing answers to some of the most fundamental and intriguing questions in biology. From the control of cellular energetics to the processes of organ development and spinal cord regeneration these transformative discoveries are allowing new insights into the basic mechanisms of tissue growth, repair and regeneration in all metazoans and will permit novel approaches to the understanding, treatment and prevention of human disease.
About Eugene Bell
The Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering is named in honor of Dr. Eugene Bell (1919 – 2007), a pioneer in the field of tissue engineering and a valued member of the Marine Biological Laboratory scientific community.
In the 1980s, Dr. Bell developed a method to grow human skin that could be grafted onto wounds of burn victims and other severely injured patients without rejection. He also devised ways to grow “skin equivalents” for blood vessels or organ tissue. His research led to what is now known as regenerative medicine.
After 30 years on the faculty, Dr. Bell retired from MIT in 1986 and went on to found two biotech companies, Organogenesis and TEI Biosciences to make his inventions commercially available. He held over 40 patents and was principal author of more than 200 scientific papers.
Dr. Bell and his wife Millicent were part of the fabric of the MBL and Woods Hole for decades. Dr. Bell served on the Board of Trustees, was a long-time MBL Corporation member, and a MBL Embryology course faculty member.