Childrens Hospital Los Angeles the Only Pediatric Institution in California to Receive a Stand-Alone Stem Cell Training Grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Other Grants Made to USC, Stanford, Cal Tech and UCLA, Among Other Institutions


LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Saban Research Institute of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has received an initial three-year, $2.4 million stem cell training grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), according to Donald B. Kohn, M.D., director of the Gene, Immune and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, and professor of pediatrics, molecular microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.

The CIRM funds were made available by the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, which was Proposition 71 on the general election ballot on Nov. 2, 2004. The initiative was overwhelmingly passed by the California electorate and will provide $3 billion over 10 years to build infrastructure and provide grants for stem cell research.

In addition to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, the CIRM's 29-member Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee awarded 16 grants totaling $39.7 million to the following institutions: the University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the Scripps Research Institute, the Burnham Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the J. Gladstone Institutes (affiliated with UC San Francisco), and eight University of California campuses -- Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and UCLA.

Childrens hospital Los Angeles is the only pediatric institution in California awarded a stand-alone CIRM training grant.

"It is our central hypothesis that childhood disorders will be especially responsive to therapies produced by the use of stem cells," said Gay M. Crooks, M.D., who is the director of The Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Stem Cell Project. "Advances in the use of stem cells to treat childhood illnesses will then lead the way to treatments for the many disorders that occur later in life."

"The biomedical environment and strength of stem cell research at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and the Keck School of Medicine combine to provide a rich milieu for training the next generation of physicians and scientists who will use stem cells as the basis for research and therapy," Dr. Kohn said.

Over the past 20 years, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has built an internationally renowned research program in stem cell biology and its clinical applications. The program was founded on the field of human hematopoietic stem cell biology, transplantation and gene therapy. Over the past decade, the program has been expanded to include somatic stem cells from lung, pancreas, liver, gut, bladder and mesenchyme.

Over the past three years, investigators at The Saban Research Institute have developed expertise in human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and established a hESC training and tissue culture core for its investigators. A unique focus of the training program will be the application of stem cells to pediatric disorders such as diabetes, monogenic inherited disorders such as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and sickle cell disease, as well as congenital birth defects.

Dr. Kohn said that the three-year Level II stem cell training grant will support 10 researchers training in stem cell biology, as well as in the clinical and ethical implications of stem cell research. The training program will include a didactic course, "Stem Cell Biology, Research Methods and Stem Cell Therapies," a course, "The Ethics of Stem Cell Research and Therapies," participation in multiple existing training activities at Childrens Hospital, training in laboratory methods in hESC, and joint participation in didactic courses taught by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine, The Saban Research Institute and the California Institute of Technology.

A steering committee with stem cell researchers, clinical physicians-scientists and medical educators will oversee selection and supervision of trainees, the mentoring process, and other activities of the training program.

Dr. Kohn, past president and an advisory board member of the American Society of Gene Therapy, has been an innovator in the field of gene therapy using stem cells for more than 15 years, and he is an expert in the design and development of gene delivery vectors. Dr. Kohn led the group that performed the first clinical trial of gene therapy for newborn infants with severe combined immune deficiency ("bubble-baby disease"). He has been the recipient of the Elizabeth Glaser Scientist Award from the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and a Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

The Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Stem Cell Project is one of the premier collections of physician-scientists and researchers in the country, developing and applying the clinical potential of stem cells to treat human diseases. It includes more than 30 research groups, contributing a wide range of complementary expertise in human embryonic and adult stem cells, gene therapy, developmental biology, tissue engineering and clinical transplantation. These investigators are working to increase the understanding of stem cell biology and apply that knowledge to the treatment of such conditions as diabetes, cancer and leukemia, thalassemia and sickle cell disease, immune deficiency disorders, cystic fibrosis, and congenital lung and heart disease.

Dr. Crooks, a member of the Gene, Immune and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine, has been studying human stem cells in bone marrow and umbilical cord blood for 14 years. She is a Stohlman Scholar of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society for her work with human stem and progenitor cells from bone marrow and cord blood.

The Saban Research Institute of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles received $33.9 million in extramural funding for biomedical research in FY '04, including more than $28 million from federal sources, like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NIH funding for research at Childrens Hospital has increased for six consecutive years.

Founded in 1901, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has been treating the most seriously ill and injured children in Los Angeles for more than a century, and it is acknowledged throughout the United States and around the world for its leadership in pediatric and adolescent health. Childrens Hospital is one of America's premier teaching hospitals, affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine for more than 73 years. It is a national leader in pediatric research.

Today, physician-scientists at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles address the most vexing pediatric medical problems and discover important new therapies for children everywhere, including advances in cancer care, gene transfer, stem cell and organ transplantation and diabetes. The Saban Research Institute is among the largest and most productive pediatric research facilities in the United States, with 91 investigators at work on 239 laboratory studies, clinical trials and community-based research and health services. It is one of the few free-standing research centers in the nation to combine scientific laboratory inquiry with patient clinical care -- dedicated exclusively to children -- and its base of knowledge is widely considered to be among the best in pediatric medicine.

Visit our website: www.ChildrensHospitalLA.org



            

Contact Data