$5.6 million awarded for stem cell research at Stanford
BY KRISTA CONGER
Chris Contag
Four researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine were awarded about $5.6 million on June 22 from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to study how to overcome the immune rejection of cells and tissues derived from stem cells.
“Transplanting cells derived from stem cells to replace lost or damaged tissue is one of the great promises of stem cell research,” said the institute in a press release announcing the awards. “However, the possibility exists that those cells could be rejected by the immune system much like a transplanted organ. The projects funded by these awards will develop strategies for overcoming rejection, eliminating potential barriers to moving stem cell therapies to the clinic.”
The institute’s governing board voted to approve 19 three-year grants for a total amount of $25 million in this funding round, the first and only addressing issues of immunology and stem cells. A record nine researchers whose grants were not recommended for funding filed “extraordinary petitions,” or requests for reconsideration from the board. Four of those were subsequently funded.
Chris Contag, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology, received about $1.45 million to identify genes that, when expressed in embryonic stem cells from mice, allow the cells to be better tolerated by the recipient’s immune system. His team will use in vivo bioluminescence imaging to track the fate of stem cells labeled with luciferase in a living animal.
Robert Negrin
Robert Negrin, MD, professor of medicine and chief of Stanford University Medical Center’s blood and bone marrow transplant program, received about $1.4 million to study the ability of a type of immune cell called a regulatory T cell to protect embryonic stem cells from rejection. His team will study the ability of two distinct populations of regulatory T cells to control the rejection of the cells in mice.
Judith Shizuru, MD, associate professor of medicine, received about $1.4 million to study how to induce the body to accept transplants of purified blood stem cells, which do not cause graft-versus-host disease. In mice, the transplants cure autoimmune disease and induce tolerance to transplanted organs. Shizuru plans to devise ways to use similar techniques in human clinical trials.
Judith Shizuru
Kenneth Weinberg, MD, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in Pediatric Cancer and Blood Diseases and member of Stanford’s Cancer Center, together with a collaborator at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, received about $1.4 million to investigate whether inducing embryonic stem cells to become thymic epithelial cells, which are responsible for weeding out T cells that would attack the body’s own tissues, can prevent autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and the rejection of other stem-cell-derived tissues.
“With these awards, CIRM-funded scientists will be advancing the critical medical technologies that are essential to prevent the immune system from rejecting life-saving transplants,” said Robert Klein, chair of the state institute’s governing board. “If successful, these experiments will place California researchers in a world leadership position on solutions to prevent immune system rejection of cellular therapies. These projects give great hope to patients and families of people with chronic disease, who look to stem cell research as their best hope for a cure.”
Kenneth Weinberg
With these grants, Stanford has now received a total of about $173 million from CIRM.
CIRM was established in November 2004 with the passage of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. The statewide ballot measure provided $3 billion in funding for stem cell research at California universities and research institutions and required setting up the agency, CIRM, to oversee allocation of the money.
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