Regeneration research is more focused on translational values. However, lying at its very foundation is an understanding of how tissues and organs repair and renew themselves at the cellular level. The past decade has witnessed paradigm changing advances in regenerative biology, many of these stems from novel insights into stemness, pluripotency, cell death and their related intra- and inter-cellular biochemical and molecular processes. Some of these new insights are highlighted in the paragraphs that follow. We now have a much better understanding of how regeneration occurs in lower organisms. We have also discovered tools and means of nuclear reprogramming to generate induced pluripotency and changes in cell fate in mammalian models. With further research, there is reasonable hope that various obstacles of regeneration in humans can be better understood and tackled. As regeneration research enters a new era, CellBio welcomes timely review articles and original papers on the theme of “The Cell Biology of Regeneration”.