During this third week of the Month of CIRM, we are focusing on CIRM’s Infrastructure programs which are all focused on helping to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.

So here is the question of the day: What is the world’s largest network of medical centers dedicated to providing stem cell treatments to patients?

The answer is the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Network.

The CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Network consists of leading medical institutions throughout California.

The ASCC Network consists of six leading medical centers throughout California. In 2015, the Network was launched in southern California at the City of Hope, UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. In September 2017, CIRM awarded funding to UC Davis and UC San Francisco to enable the Network to better serve patients throughout the state. Forty stem cell clinical trials have been conducted within the Network with hundreds of patients being treat for a variety of conditions, including:

• Cancers of the blood, brain, lung and other sites
• Organ diseases of the heart and kidney
• Pediatric diseases
• Traumatic injury to the brain and spine

A complete list of clinical trials may be found on our website.

The Alpha Clinics at UC Los Angeles and San Francisco are working collaboratively on breakthrough treatments for serious childhood diseases. This video highlights a CIRM-funded clinical trial at the UCLA Alpha Clinic that is designed to restore the immune system of patients with life-threatening immune deficiencies. A similar breakthrough treatment is also being used at the UCLA Alpha Clinic to treat sickle cell disease. A video describing this treatment is below.

Why do we need a specialized Network for stem cell clinical trials?

Stem cell treatments are unique in many ways. First, they consist of cells or cell products that frequently require specialized processing. For example, the breakthrough treatments for children, described above, requires the bone marrow to be genetically modified to correct defects. This “gene therapy” is performed in the Alpha Clinic laboratories, which are specifically designed to implement cutting edge gene therapy techniques on the patient’s stem cells.

Many of the cancer clinical trials also take the patient’s own cells and then process them in a laboratory. This processing is designed to enhance the patient’s ability to fight cancer using their own immune cells. Each Alpha Clinic has specialized laboratories to process cells, and the sites at City of Hope and UC Davis have world-class facilities for stem cell manufacturing. The City of Hope and Davis facilities produce high quality therapeutic products for commercial and academic clinical trial sponsors. Because of this ability, the Network has become a prime location internationally for clinical trials requiring processing and manufacturing services.

Another unique feature of the Network is its partnership with CIRM, whose mission is to accelerate stem cell treatments for patients with unmet medical needs. Often, this means developing treatments for rare diseases in which the patient population is comparatively small. For example, there about 40-100 immune deficient children born each year in the United States. We are funding clinical trials to help treat those children. The Network is also treating rare brain and blood cancers.

To find patients that may benefit from these treatments, the Network has developed the capacity to confidentially query over 20 million California patient records. If a good match is found, there is a procedure in place, that is reviewed by an ethics committee, where the patient’s doctor can be notified of the trial and pass that information to the patient. For patients that are interested in learning more, each Alpha Clinic has a Patient Care Coordinator with the job of coordinating the process of educating patients about the trial and assisting them if they choose to participate.

How Can I Learn More?

If you are a patient or a family member and would like to learn more about the CIRM Alpha Clinics, click here. There is contact information for each clinic so you can learn more about specific trials, or you can visit our Alpha Clinics Trials page for a complete list of trials ongoing in the Network.

If you are a patient or a trial sponsor interested in learning more about the services offered through our Alpha Clinics Network, visit our website.