USC Faculty Receive $8 Million in Funding for Stem Cell Research
Image courtesy of Martin Pera
The grants received formal approval today from the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC), the 29-member governing board forof the institute.
The New Faculty II Awards allocation is the second round of CIRM funding to support M.D. and Ph.D. scientists who are at critical early stages of establishing careers in stem cell research. Investigators funded by these grants receive salary and research support for five years, creating a stable environment for building innovative research programs at a point in their careers when funding can be difficult to obtain.
“These prestigious awards to our faculty members will accelerate the pace of these young scientists’ highly innovative and creative research programs in basic stem cell biology and tissue engineering,” says Martin Pera, Ph.D., director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC.
The three Keck School of Medicine faculty members working at the USC Health Sciences Campus and at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles who received New Faculty II Awards are:
• Gage Crump, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell and neurobiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, who received a $2.3 million award aimed at developing cell-based therapies that lead to better healing of traumatic head injuries.
• Qilong Ying, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell and neurobiology at the Keck School, who received a $2.4 million award for his studies of an important biochemical pathway that influences embryonic stem cell behavior.
• Tracy Grikscheit, M.D., assistant professor of pediatric surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, who received a $3.2 million award to investigate a new approach towards building intestinal tissue to correct a devastating condition called Short Bowel Syndrome, seen primarily in premature babies.
“These studies will enable efforts to scale up production of specialized cells like nerves and muscle from stem cell cultures, for use in future research and therapy,” says Pera, also a professor of cell and neurobiology at the Keck School of Medicine. “They will also support genetic studies of how of bones in the head and neck are formed in the embryo and how they might be stimulated to regenerate in the adult, work that will one day aid in reconstruction after traumatic head injuries. Dr. Grikscheit’s tissue engineered bowel has the potential to overcome the many limitations of current transplantation surgery for Short Bowel Syndrome.”
This second round of New Faculty Awards builds on the 22 grants given out in December 2007. In each case, funded researchers could work with any type of stem cell including adult or embryonic, animal or human.
“We expect these awards to play a significant role in changing the career trajectory of funded researchers, encouraging talented young investigators to pursue careers in stem cell research,” said Dr. Alan Trounson, president of CIRM. “I’m pleased that great research has the opportunity for funding. We now have a very high caliber of new faculty with a total of 45 awards from two independent RFA rounds.”
CIRM received 55 applications from 32 institutions. Each institution could recommend up to five faculty members minus the number that received New Faculty I awards. This second round of New Faculty Aawards differs slightly from the first round in the focus on recruiting promising new physician-researchers to the field of stem cell research, and in requiring funded scientists to name mentors who will guide them toward establishing successful, productive careers in stem cell research.
CIRM was established when voters passed Proposition 71 in 2004 to borrow and spend $3 billion over 10 years to support stem cell research. To date, USC faculty members working at the two main campuses and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles have secured $60 million in funding, ranking third in CIRM funding received behind Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco. USC is also part of the Southern California Stem Cell Scientific Collaboration (SC3), which is an agreement among six research institutions in Southern California allowing members to share training programs, scientific core facilities and expertise, and to team up on a wide range of research programs.
For more information on USC’s stem cell programs, please visit stemcell.usc.edu.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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