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Best in class
September 2011
EDIT CONNECT
SHARING OPTIONS:
From People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" to
U.S. News and World Report's "Best
Graduate Schools" rankings, publications have taken the risk of having jeers directed
their way for
trying to determine the best of anything. But with Frost &
Sullivan giving us guidance as to what it sees as the top academic and research
institutions doing stem cell work, we got their take of the "best of the best"
in various categories.
Here, in no
particular order, we present the top five in
academia in North America, as chosen by Frost & Sullivan.
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Mich. ![]() She
describes
the stem cell research budget at the school as "in the tens of millions" and
adds, "the University of Michigan has committed $2 million to
the Taubman
Institute's Consortium for Stem Cell
Therapies, our core facility for the
derivation of embryonic stem cell and iPS cell lines. But there are many
scientists across the university who
are also doing vital work with stem
cells."
The goals of U-M's stem cell research are very much translational in nature, seeking to use what is learned about the cells in the lab to create new treatments for patients. "We use stem cells to study the biology and progression of diseases, such as ALS, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis and others," Feldman says. "We are applying that knowledge in the field of regenerative medicine, implanting stem cells to protect and restore damaged tissues. We are also studying the biology of cancer stem cells and developing new therapies to limit their growth. Finally, we use stem cells for drug testing." Among the key researchers for U-M are Feldman herself, who focuses on regenerative medicine in neurological diseases; Dr. Gary Smith, with expertise in human embryonic stem cell derivation; and Dr. Max Wicha, who is well known for his cancer stem cell biology skills. Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Winston-Salem, N.C. ![]() The focus of
Wake Forest's stem cell work is in developing cell therapies, using stem cells
to
engineer tissues and organs and exploring biomaterials or small molecules
that can be injected or implanted in the body to recruit stem cells to the site
of an injury or damage to promote healing from within.
"The goal of all of our work at the institute is to develop new therapies to improve patients' lives," says Dr. Anthony Atala, director of WFIRM. "Cells are the basis of regenerative medicine and are vital to what we do." The institution
works with most types of stem cells, including those from bone marrow, fat
and
skin (induced pluripotent stem cells), and also with the amnion-derived cells
discovered by WFIRM scientists, says Karen Richardson, Wake Forest's
senior
communications manager, who says the stem cell budget is approximately $40
million a year.
"We continue to explore new sources of stem cells," she notes. "For example, we recently determined that multipotent stem cells can be routinely isolated from normal human urine." Harvard Medical School Boston While Frost & Sullivan singled out the medical school specifically, stem cell research is more broad than that, handled under the umbrella of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), which Harvard calls the "largest collaborative of its kind … a gathering place for a whole community of scientists and clinical experts in stem cell science seeking to bring new treatments to the clinic, and new life to patients with a wide range of chronic illnesses." The HSCI
includes not only various health organizations and departments within the
school, but also the law school,
business school, divinity school and others,
with the recognition that "stem cell research is a challenge that involves
areas of expertise not
encompassed in any one discipline, department or school.
Most importantly, basic biology must interface with medical expertise if the
promise of this
field is to be fully realized." Harvard describes the approach
as a "new business model of a virtual R&D network."
Harvard has
developed a portfolio approach to stem cell-related scientific research
funding, with seed grants for about 10 early-stage
projects per year; core
facilities, which range from shared equipment centers to a drug screening and a
reprogramming center; and disease programs,
which encompass multi-lab programs
tackling key questions in selected disease areas.
Among the
considerations in this research
area are: the importance of the connection
between clinical and basic research that is driven by a real clinical need; the
need for a nonprofit
organization to respond to unmet medical needs in markets
that are too small for companies to address; and the use of Harvard's Center
for Human Cell
Therapy as the coordinating mechanism and leveraged resource for
the HSCI when entering the clinic, negotiating with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration
(FDA) and planning trials.
City of Hope's Beckman Research Institute
Duarte, Calif. With such facilities and operations as its Center for Biomedicine & Genetics, which was designed and built specifically to produce biological molecules and cells—including stems cells—to federally mandated standards for use as therapies, City of Hope has drawn in tens of millions of dollars of funding from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and from such organizations as the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which recently awarded City of Hope an $8.6 million contract to facilitate stem cell research from laboratory to clinical study —this five-year contract is the first from the NHLBI to focus on development and manufacturing of stem cell therapies. "This prestigious contract recognizes our unique stem cell research and manufacturing capabilities," said Dr. Michael A. Friedman, president and CEO of City of Hope and director of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center at the time of the NHLBI announcement. Notably,
Friedman was this year reappointed to a second, six-year term on the
Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee, the governing board
for CIRM.
The Beckman
Research Institute, while highlighted by Frost & Sullivan as a stem cell
leader, is not devoted solely
to stem cells, though such research informs much
of its work. The first of only five Beckman Research Institutes established by
funding from the Arnold
and Mabel Beckman Foundation, the City of Hope institute
is responsible for "fundamentally expanding the world's understanding of how
biology affects
diseases such as cancer, HIV/AIDS and diabetes."
University of Southern California Los Angeles The Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the Keck School of Medicine, which is located at the University of Southern California (USC), was founded in 2006 with a mission to take discoveries in stem cell research "from our laboratories and apply them in therapeutic focus areas founded on outstanding clinical research programs at the Keck School." Therapeutic
areas of interest include ophthalmology, liver disease, diabetes,
cardiovascular medicine,
oncology and hematology. In 2010, the center began the next phase of its program development thanks to a gift from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and funding from CIRM, which resulted in the opening of USC's new $80 million facility called the Eli & Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine. That facility now houses 11 research teams and four core laboratories and is envisioned by USC as becoming a hub for the development of regenerative medicine in the Los Angeles region. The Eli and Edythe Broad Center's four core labs are: the Stem Cell Core Facility, which maintains and distributes quality-controlled stocks of a large number of embryonic stem cell lines, conducts training in human embryonic stem cell culture and develops and validate new protocols for stem cell growth and manipulation; the Flow Cytometry Core Laboratory, which provides researchers with access to instruments that enable them to sort stem cell populations into subgroups; the Imaging Core Facility, which enables scientists to take high-resolution pictures of stem cells to better identify molecules and structures within cells and to trace the fate of cells as they migrate, divide and differentiate within tissues; and the High Throughput Screening Facility, an operation aimed at discovering small, drug-like molecules that interact to modulate signaling pathways that control stem cell behavior. RELATED STORIES:
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