Abstract:Recently, stem cells and regenerative medicine research have received tremendous attention in the field of life sciences. Stem cells are capable of self-renewal and differentiation into a wide range of cell types with multiple regenerative medicine purposes, which has great potential for tackling the most major and compelling medical problems confronting humanity. By the application of groundbreaking technologies for tissue repair and replacement to the treatment of end-stage diseases, regenerative medicine has triggered a new round of medical technology revolutions after medicines and surgery. To address the strategic needs of the whole nation, and to aim at the bottleneck problems of stem cells and regenerative medicine research, Chinese Academy of Sciences（CAS） launched the“Strategic Priority Research Program of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Research” in 2011. This paper briefly introduces implementation progress of this program. During the processing of this program, the scientists of CAS have made a number of remarkable achievements which have been recognized throughout the world, including a series of major theoretical breakthroughs, especially in the fields of epigenetic regulation of stem cell totipotency, haploid stem cells, mechanism of cell reprogramming, fibroblast transdifferentiation, tissue repairing materials, etc. Among them, there are three research papers,“Revealing the Important Role of Tet Dioxygenases in Mammalian Epigenetic Regulation”,“Successfully Converting Mouse Fibroblasts to Functional Hepatocyte-like Cells”,“Establishment of Androgenetic Haploid Embryonic Stem Cells”, have been selected as“Top 10 Achievements of Chinese Science” in 2011 and 2012. Moreover, two achievements won the second prize of State Natural Science Award, and one achievement received the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award. By the year 2014, the stem cell program had published 489 papers, and had applied for 209 patents（69 authorized）, including 17 international patent applications. Following the development of this program, CAS has achieved a significant increase in the number of publication in the stem cell research field, which brings its ranking jumping from 27th up to the 4th among the whole international research community. The implementation of the stem cell program not only significantly enhanced the innovation ability of CAS in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, but also greatly improved the strategic position of China in this field. On the other hand, this paper outlines the domestic and international status of stem cells and regenerative medicine research, analyzes the national strategic demands of stem cell research field in China, and puts forward several suggestions for maintaining the healthy and stable development of this field:（1） to pay more attention to the development and construction of research institutions and infrastructure; （2） to promote the iPS technology from research to application;（3） to accelerate the research of stem cell technology into clinical application;（4） to strengthen the ethical review of stem cell research;（5） to emphasize the intellectual property protection; and（6） to further improve the system of clinical supervision for stem cell therapy.