The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the world’s largest institution dedicated to regenerative medicine, awarded $56 million to fund various clinical research aimed at treating Parkinson’s disease, autoimmune conditions and a variety of cancers.

The awards will support seven projects—five clinical trials and two preclinical projects—in the Agency’s clinical program which provides funding for eligible stem cell and gene therapy-based projects through all stages of clinical trial development.

The approved clinical awards include:

Application #	Program Title	Principal Investigator/Institution	Amount
CLIN1-14845	Neural stem cell delivered oncolytic viro-immunotherapy for ovarian cancer	Aboody, Karen – City of Hope	$5,314,547
CLIN1-15337	Chimeric TGFB Signaling Receptor (CTSR) Enabled Anti-B7H3 CAR T-cell Therapy in Children and Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) with Recurrent Solid Tumors	Asgharzadeh, Shahab – Children’s Hospital Los Angeles	$6,000,000
CLIN2-14801	Stem-Derived IL13Ra2 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cells for Patients with Melanoma and Advanced Solid Tumors	Kalbasi, Anusha – Stanford	$10,211,085
CLIN2-15547	Phase 1/2a Dose Escalation Study of Autologous Neuron Replacement in Sporadic Parkinson’s Disease (PD)	Wirth, Edward – Aspen Neuroscience	$8,000,000
CLIN2-15562	Phase 1 Study of Autologous E-SYNC T Cells in Adult Participants with EGFRvIII+ Glioblastoma	Okada, Hideho – UCSF	$10,927,618
CLIN2-16063	A phase 1/2 study to evaluate a bi-specific CD19/CD20-directed CAR T-cell, in refractory lupus nephritis (LN) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)	Benjamin, Jonathan – ImmPACT-Bio, Inc.	$8,000,000
CLIN2-16303	A Phase 1 Study in Participants with Moderate to Severe Active Systemic Lupus Erythematosus	Hickingbottom, Barbara – Fate Therapeutics	$7,934,448

Included in the awards is an $8 million award to Aspen Neuroscience to advance an investigational stem cell-derived dopaminergic neuron replacement therapy for Parkinson’s disease (PD). This individualized potential therapy is being explored in a First in Human Phase 1/2a clinical trial for patients with moderate to advanced PD.

Another award is a $7.9 million award to Barbara Hickingbottom, MD, of Fate Therapeutics to advance clinical research for FT819, an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived CD19 CAR T-cell therapy for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). SLE is a debilitating autoimmune disease and affects more than 200,000 Americans, particularly women of color.

Another project added to CIRM’s clinical program includes a $5.3 million award to Karen Aboody, MD of City of Hope for late-stage preclinical research to develop a neural stem cell mediated treatment for a chemo-resistant, metastatic ovarian cancer. CIRM has previously supported Aboody and the City of Hope research team with an award for earlier-stage translational research.

To learn more about CIRM-funded clinical trials, click here. To explore more CIRM awards, visit our grants database.