3D Printing Hope in ReGen Valley

Regenerating a Community Through Regenerative Medicine

As I crossed the Merrimack River into Manchester, New Hampshire, the first thing that struck me was the brick. Stately brick mill buildings lined Commercial Street, their oversized windows catching the morning sun and hinting at a new chapter beyond their industrial past.

This stretch, known as the “mile of mills,” once belonged to the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company—the largest cotton textile plant in the world.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Manchester manufactured cloth. Today, those same brick walls house something far more extraordinary: clean rooms, bioreactors, and labs where people are no longer manufacturing fabric—they’re manufacturing the fabric of life.

Welcome to ReGen Valley.

From Cotton Textiles to Human Cells

Just thirty minutes south of New Hampshire’s capital, Manchester is reinventing itself as the nation’s hub for biofabrication—the science (and art) of manufacturing human cells, tissues, and organs to cure chronic diseases and heal traumatic injuries.

ReGen Valley is one of 31 federally designated Tech Hubs created through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a program designed to make sure the industries of tomorrow—AI, clean energy, biotech—are built right here in the U.S. With ARMI (the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute) at its helm, ReGen Valley is working to unlock the promise of biofabrication, so that lifesaving therapies once out of reach can become part of everyday medicine.

The goal? To make regenerative therapies affordable, accessible, and scalable. Or, as one ARMI leader put it to me: “People shouldn’t have to die for other people to live.”

Why Biofabrication Matters

Here’s the startling reality:

• 6 out of 10 adults in the U.S. have at least one chronic disease.
• 17 people die every day waiting for an organ that never comes.
• Health care costs us $4.9 trillion annually—nearly 18% of GDP.

That’s why scientists and entrepreneurs in ReGen Valley are hard at work building a new future.

Imagine being able to grow a new lung using your own cells—no waiting list, no risk of rejection.

Imagine safer drug trials using lab-grown human tissues instead of animals.

Imagine blood that can be manufactured on demand, ready where and when it’s needed, whether in a cancer ward or on a battlefield.

That’s not science fiction. It’s happening right now in New Hampshire.

Inside the Innovation Ecosystem

What makes ReGen Valley unique isn’t just the science—it’s the ecosystem. Breakthroughs don’t happen in isolation; they happen when the entire community comes together.

Here, you’ll find:

• Manufacturing facilities and apprenticeship opportunities run by Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) | BioFabUSA.
• Lab space and cutting-edge research at the University of New Hampshire-Manchester.
• Industry partners tackling biotech, medtech, and advanced manufacturing.
• Training and talent development pipelines at Manchester Community College, Nashua Community College, and UNH-Manchester.
• Housing, childcare, and transportation investments to support the talent engine.

Together, this ecosystem is incubating game-changing innovations:

• United Therapeutics, working with 3D Systems, aims to bioprint human lungs (and someday kidneys and livers). Their dream: unlimited transplantable organs.
• Safi Biotherapeutics seeks to grow red blood cells at scale to replace the fragile donor blood supply.

And dozens more through ARMI’s program, BioFabUSA—an innovation accelerator that supports startups, researchers, and manufacturers working to bring regenerative therapies from lab to market.

All their ideas are bold. All face daunting challenges of scale. Together, they are working to move regenerative medicine beyond the lab—making it scalable, safe, and accessible to all.

A New Kind of Workforce

What excites me most about ReGen Valley is how it’s not only advancing science—it’s inventing an entirely new world of work. Biofabrication blends biology, engineering, data science, and manufacturing, and in southern New Hampshire it’s opening doors to career paths that didn’t even exist a decade ago.

New jobs are emerging across every part of the ecosystem:

• Biofabrication & advanced manufacturing — from technicians who operate specialized equipment to engineers designing automated systems, and quality experts who ensure every therapy meets rigorous safety standards.
• Research & development — scientists, genomics specialists, and synthetic biology engineers pushing the boundaries of discovery.
• Data science & technology — analysts, AI/ML engineers, and software developers powering the digital backbone of regenerative medicine.
• Clinical readiness & healthcare — professionals preparing hospitals, clinicians, and patients to safely adopt these breakthrough therapies.
• Supply chain & logistics — specialists ensuring biomaterials and finished therapies are delivered securely and reliably.

ReGen Valley is expected to create nearly 9,000 new biotech jobs in the next 10 years. To make sure the talent pipeline keeps up, UNH-Manchester, Manchester Community College, and Nashua Community Colleges have teamed up to create ReGen Common Campus—a single “front door” with many possible pathways for anyone who wants to enter the field. Together, they’re training everyone from technicians to PhDs—and proving that innovation ecosystems thrive when talent at every level has a way in.

To spread the word and build a pipeline of learners, UNH–Manchester rolled out a STEM-MoBILE (STEM Mobile Biofabrication Integrated Lab Experience)—a former food truck transformed into a mobile lab that will introduce the emerging field of biofabrication to schools and communities across New Hampshire, sparking curiosity about the science itself as well as the education and job opportunities it creates.

What Can We Learn from Manchester?

The old Manchester bet everything on one company. The new Manchester is betting on collaboration.

ReGen Valley shows us that communities can regenerate themselves by bringing together scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, and local leaders around a shared vision. It’s about more than breakthroughs in medicine—it’s about building opportunity, creating jobs, and, above all, renewing hope.

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🙏 Special thanks to Julie Lenzer, Matt Simon, Chuck Lloyd, and the Greater Manchester Chamber for showing me the way.

✨ This essay was researched and written by me, with editing support from AI.

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