Imbasciani (pictured above at left) was elected to the six-year term at CIRM’s January Board meeting. He will replace outgoing chair Jonathan Thomas, who has served in the position since 2011.
“My experience has positioned me to champion the aims of CIRM, advocate for it cogently, and represent it responsibly before the public and their state and federal elected representatives,” Imbasciani said. “I look forward to the challenge of advancing the groundbreaking work of this Agency, at the same time nourishing the hopes for medical advances held by the citizens of our great State.”
Imbasciani has served as the Secretary of the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) since 2015. As Secretary, he created several new programs within the department, including forging eight independent California veteran homes into a unified system, establishing programs for veterans in state prisons, and supporting the 58 county veteran service offices.
Current CIRM Vice Chair Maria Bonneville, Fmr. Vice Chair Sen. Art Torres (ret). and Fmr. Chair Jonathan Thomas
CIRM also bid farewell to Sen. Art Torres (ret) and Jonathan Thomas (also known as JT) for their service on our Board.
JT was elected as Chair of the Board in 2011 after he was nominated by then-Governor Jerry Brown, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, and Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.
He served as chair of the Governing Board for more than 12 years. In that time, he led CIRM in granting $2.5 billion in grants to support groundbreaking research and discovery to advance stem cell research and accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.
He led the agency as it expanded its work with industry, revamped its award processes, prepared for the expiration of bond funding, supported the drafting of Proposition 14, and planned for the next phase of CIRM’s programs after the voters approved $5.5 billion in additional funding.
Senator Torres was nominated in 2009 as CIRM Vice Chair by then-Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and Treasurer Bill Lockyer, and shortly after was elected by the CIRM Governing Board.
Senator Torres served on the Grants and Standards working groups, and served as the inaugural Chair of the Accessibility and Affordability Working Group. He served on numerous subcommittees, led CIRM’s government relations efforts, and played a pivotal role in launching CIRM’s SPARK high school internship program.
CIRM Vice Chair Maria Bonneville, Fmr. Chair Jonathan Thomas, Chair Vito Imbasciani, and President & CEO Maria Millan
CIRM expresses its deepest gratitude to Senator Torres and JT for their service on its Governing Board and for their dedication to the advancement of stem cell research and our mission to accelerate world class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments in an equitable manner to a diverse California and world.
Dr. Chou is the President, CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of AltruBio, Inc. a clinical stage biotech company that is focused on developing novel antibody therapeutics for the treatment of immune inflammatory diseases.
“I am excited to join the ICOC leveraging my experience both as a scientist in the the biopharmaceutical industry and as a corporate executive to support the research and funding of life changing medicines for patients in need,” said Dr. Chou.
Dr. Chou has more than 20 years experience in drug development and biomanufacturing. Before joining AltruBio she headed the global Biotech organization at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. At Bayer she oversaw the development, manufacturing and distribution of the company’s more than $3 billion product portfolio. She also oversaw more than 2,000 employees and led the drug development and launch activities for the biologics pipeline. In addition, she also served as the site head for Bayer’s facility in Berkeley, California, the company’s largest manufacturing site in the U.S.
“We are honored and delighted to have Dr. Chou take a seat on the Board,” says Jonathan Thomas, Ph.D., J.D., Chair of the CIRM Board. “She has a remarkable career in academia, industry and in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and will be an invaluable addition to the ICOC. We are very much looking forward to working with her.”
Dr. Chou also has had leadership roles at Pfizer, Medivation Inc., Genentech and Wyeth Biopharma. She has won several awards and in 2018 was the recipient of the Most Influential Women in Business award by the San Francisco Business Times. She is currently an advisor at the UC Berkeley Engineering School and is working to promote diversity and inclusion through her advisory board position at Silicon Valley Women in Engineering.
Dr. Chou obtained her Ph.D., at Yale, her post-doctoral training at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany and was a research faculty member at Harvard University Medical School focusing on cell biology and neuroscience.
Dr. Chou was appointed to the CIRM Board by State Treasurer Fiona Ma, as the Executive Officer of a Commercial Life Science entity. She replaces Dave Martin.
We were saddened to learn today of the death of Susan Solomon, the CEO and co-founder of the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), a non-profit organization that supports stem cell research around the world. As CEO, Ms. Solomon raised over $400M for stem cell research, helping to catalyze the field and transform the future of medical research.
The foundation announced the news on its website, saying she died after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
CIRM’s Chair Jonathan Thomas said she will be greatly missed. “We were so terribly sorry to hear about Susan’s passing. She was a titan in our field who did immeasurable good for patients everywhere. We have so valued our relationship with her and NYSCF through the years.”
Like many patient advocates Ms. Solomon became active when a family member was hit by disease. In her case, it was in 1992 when her ten year old son Ben was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. A lawyer by training and a longtime business executive she put her skills to work to identify the best way to help her son, and others with type 1 diabetes. In an interview in the Wall Street Journal she says that background really helped: “As a lawyer, you learn how to learn about a new field instantly,” and, she added, “I’m really comfortable asking dumb questions.”
After much research and many conversations with scientists she concluded that stem cells were the most promising way to help patients. In 2005 she co-founded NYSCF.
Dr. Jeanne Loring, the Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, says Ms. Solomon’s death is a huge blow to the field: “I have worked with NYSCF for the last 5 years, on the project to study neuroinflammation in space using iPSC-derived neurons. Susan was one in a billion, she threw all of her considerable energy into starting and sustaining the only stand-alone research institute that I know of in the US dedicated to stem cell research.”
CIRM Bridges students 2022. The CIRM Board approved funding for a program to help even more students advance a career in science.
The governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has approved $46,076,430 to invest in its newest education pillar- the COMPASS (Creating Opportunities through Mentorship and Partnership Across Stem cell Science) training program.
Education is at the core of CIRM’s mission of accelerating world class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments in an equitable manner to a diverse California and world. And funding these additional programs is an important step in ensuring that California has a well-trained stem cell workforce.
The objective of COMPASS is to prepare a diverse cadre of undergraduate students for careers in regenerative medicine through combining hands-on research opportunities with strategic and structured mentorship experiences.
“Education and infrastructure are two funding pillars critical for creating the next generation of researchers and conducting stem cell based clinical trials,” says Jonathan Thomas, Ph.D., J.D., Chair of the CIRM Board. “The importance of these programs was acknowledged in Proposition 14 and we expect that they will continue to be important components of CIRM’s programs and strategic direction in the years to come.”
Most undergraduate research training programs, including those targeting students from underserved communities, target individuals with predefined academic credentials as well as a stated commitment towards graduate school, medical school, or faculty positions in academia. COMPASS will support the development and implementation of novel strategies to recognize and foster untapped talent that can lead to new and valuable perspectives that are specific to the challenges of regenerative medicine, and that will create new paths to a spectrum of careers that are not always apparent to students in the academic, undergraduate environment.
COMPASS will complement but not compete with CIRM’s Bridges program, a subset of which serve a different, but equally important population of undergraduate trainees; similarly, the program is unlikely to compete for the same pools of students that would be most likely to receive support through the major NIH Training Programs such as MARC and RISE.
Here are the 16 successful applicants.
Application number
Title
Principal Investigator
Amount
EDUC5-13840
The COMPASS Scholars Program – Developing Today’s Untapped Talent into Tomorrow’s STEM Cell Researchers
John Matsui, University of California, Berkeley
$2,908,950
EDUC5-13634
COMPASS Undergraduate Program
Alice F Tarantal, University of California, Davis
$2,909,950
EDUC5-13637
Research Mentorship Program in Regenerative Medicine Careers for a Diverse Undergraduate Student Body
Brian J. Cummings, University of California, Irvine
$2,729,900
EDUC5-13665
CIRM COMPASS Training Program (N-COMPASS)
Cindy S Malone, The University Corporation at California State University, Northridge
$2,909,700
EDUC5-13817
COMPASS: Accelerating Stem Cell Research by Educating and Empowering New Stem Cell Researchers
Tracy L Johnson, University of California, Los Angeles
$2,910,000
EDUC5-13744
Training and mentorship program in stem cell biology and engineering: A COMPASS for the future
Dennis Clegg, University of California, Santa Barbara
$2,746,000
EDUC5-13636
Research Training and Mentorship Program to Inspire Diverse Undergraduates toward Regenerative Medicine Careers (RAMP)
Huinan Hannah Liu, The Regents of the University of California on behalf of its Riverside Campus
$2,910,000
EDUC5-13679
Inclusive Pathways for a Stem Cell Scholar (iPSCs) Undergraduate Training Program
Lily Chen, San Francisco State University
$2,894,500
EDUC5-13733
A COMPASS to guide the growth of a diverse regenerative medicine workforce that represents California and benefits the world
Kristen OHalloran Cardinal, Cal Poly Corporation, an Auxiliary of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
$2,887,939
EDUC5-13619
Increase Diversity, Equity, and Advancement in Cell Based Manufacturing Sciences (IDEA-CBMS)
Michael Fino, MiraCosta College
$2,894,500
EDUC5-13667
COMPASS Program for Southern California Hispanic Serving Institution
Bianca Romina Mothé, California State University San Marcos Corporation
$2,877,200
EDUC5-13653
Student Pluripotency: Realizing Untapped Undergraduate Potential in Regenerative Medicine
Daniel Nickerson, California State University, San Bernardino
$2,909,853
EDUC5-13647
COMPASS: an inclusive Pipeline for Research and Other Stem cell-based Professions in Regenerative medicine (iPROSPR)
One of my favorite phrases is “standing room only”. I got a chance to use it last week when we held a panel discussion on whether regenerative medicine could turn back the clock on aging. The event was at the annual conference of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) and more than 150 people packed into a conference room to hear the debate (so far more than 800 also watched a live stream of the event.)
It’s not surprising the place was jammed. The speakers included:
Dr. Deepak Srivastava, the President of the Gladstone Institutes, an expert on heart disease and the former President of ISSCR.
Dr. Stanley “Tom” Carmichael, Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCLA and an expert on strokes and other forms of brain injury.
Adrienne Shapiro, the mother of a daughter with sickle cell disease, a tireless patient advocate and supporter of regenerative medicine research, and the co-founder of Axis Advocacy, a family support organization for people with sickle cell.
And the topic is a timely one. It is estimated that as many as 90 percent of the people who die every day, die from diseases of aging such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer. So, what can be done to change that, to not just slow down or stop these diseases, but to turn back the clock, to repair the damage already done and replace cells and tissues already destroyed.
The conversation was enlightening, hopeful and encouraging, but also cautionary.
You can watch the whole event on our Youtube channel.
When the voters of California approved Proposition 14 last November (thanks folks) they gave us $5.5 billion to continue the work we started way back in 2014. It’s a great honor, and a great responsibility.
It’s also a great opportunity to look at what we do and how we do it and try to come up with even better ways of funding groundbreaking research and helping create a new generation of researchers.
In addition to improving on what we already do, Prop 14 introduced some new elements, some new goals for us to add to the mix, and we are in the process of fleshing out how we can best do that.
Because of all these changes we decided it would be a good idea to hold a “Town Hall” meeting and let everyone know what these changes are and how they may impact applications for funding.
The Town Hall, on Tuesday June 29, was a great success with almost 200 participants. But we know that not everyone who wanted to attend could, so here’s the video of the event, and below that are the questions that were posed by people during the meeting, and the answers to those questions.
Having seen the video we would be eternally grateful if you could respond to a short online survey, to help us get a better idea of your research and education needs and to be better able to serve you and identify potential areas of opportunity for CIRM. Here’s a link to that survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VQMYPDL
We know that there may be issues or questions that are not answered here, so feel free to send those to us at info@cirm.ca.gov and we will make sure you get an answer.
Are there any DISC funding opportunities specific to early-stage investigators?
DISC funding opportunities are open to all investigators. There aren’t any that are specific to junior investigators.
Are DISC funding opportunities available for early-mid career researchers based out of USA such as Australia?
Sorry, you have to be in California for us to fund your work.
Does tumor immunology/ cancer immunotherapy fall within the scope of the CIRM discovery grants?
Hi, when will reviews for DISC 2: CIRM Quest – Discovery Stage Research Projects (deadline March 2021) be available? Thanks!
Review summaries for the March 2021 Discovery submitted applications will be available by mid-August, with final board funding decisions at the August 24th Application Review Subcommittee Meeting
Has CIRM project made it to Phase III or product launch with FDA approval? What is CIRM strategy for start-up biotech companies?
CIRM funding supports non-profit academic grantees as well as companies of all sizes.
I am studying stem cells using mouse. Is my research eligible for the CIRM grants?
Yes it is.
Your programs more specifically into stem cell research would be willing to take patients that are not from California?
Yes, we have treated patients who are not in California. Some have come to California for treatment and others have been treated in other states in the US by companies that are based here in California.
Can you elaborate how the preview of the proposals works? Who reviews them and what are the criteria for full review?
The same GWG panel both previews and conducts the full review. The panel first looks through all the applications to identify what each reviewer believes represents the most likely to be impactful and meet the goals of the CIRM Discovery program. Those that are selected by any reviewer moves forward to the next full review step.
If you meet your milestones-How likely is it that a DISC recipient gets a TRAN award?
The milestones are geared toward preparation of the TRAN stage. However, this is a different application and review that is not guaranteed to result in funding.
Regarding Manufacturing Public Private partnerships – What specific activities is CIRM thinking about enabling these partnerships? For example, are out of state for profit commercial entities able to conduct manufacturing at CA based manufacturing centers even though the clinical program may be primarily based out of CA? If so, what percent of the total program budget must be expended in CA? How will CIRM enable GMP manufacturing centers interact with commercial entities?
We are in the early stages of developing this concept with continued input from various stakeholders. The preliminary vision is to build a network of academic GMP manufacturing centers and industry partners to support the manufacturing needs of CIRM-funded projects in California.
We are in the process of widely distributing a summary of the manufacturing workshop. Here’s a link to it:
If a center is interested in being a sharing lab or competency hub with CIRM, how would they go about it?
CIRM will be soliciting applications for Shared Labs/Competency hubs in potential future RFAs. The survey asks several questions asking for feedback on these concepts so it would really help us if you could complete the survey.
Would preclinical development of stem cell secretome-derived protein therapies for rare neuromuscular diseases and ultimately, age-related muscle wasting be eligible for CIRM TRAN1 funding? The goal is to complete IND-enabling studies for a protein-based therapy that enhances tissue regeneration to treat a rare degenerative disease. the screening to identify the stem-cell secreted proteins to develop as therapeutics is done by in vitro screening with aged/diseased primary human progenitor cells to identify candidates that enhance their differentiation . In vivo the protein therapeutic signals to several cell types , including precursor cells to improve tissue homeostasis.
I would suggest reaching out to our Translation team to discuss the details as it will depend on several factors. You can email the team at translational@cirm.ca.gov
The world of stem cell research lost a good friend this weekend. Eli Broad, a generous supporter of science, education and the arts, passed away at the age of 87.
Eli came from humble origins, born in the Bronx to an immigrant father who worked as a house painter and a mother who was a seamstress. He went to Michigan State University, working a number of jobs to pay his way, including selling women’s shoes, working as a door-to-door salesman for garbage disposal units, and delivering rolls of film to be developed. He graduated in three years and then became the youngest person ever to pass the CPA exam in Michigan.
He started out as an accountant but quickly switched to housing and development and was a millionaire by the time he was 30. As his wealth grew so did his interest in using that money to support causes dear to him and his wife Edythe.
With the passage of Proposition 71 in 2004 Broad put up money to help create the Broad Stem Cell Centers at UCLA, UC San Francisco and the University of Southern California. Those three institutions became powerhouses in stem cell research and the work they do is a lasting legacy to the generosity of the Broads.
Rosa Dilani, histology core manager at the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center, explains the lab’s function to Eli Broad after the Oct. 29 ribbon cutting of the new building. In the background are U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (in purple) and Bob Klein in gray suit.
“Science has lost one of its greatest philanthropic supporters,” says Jonathan Thomas, PhD, JD, Chair of the CIRM Board. ” Eli and Edye Broad set the table for decades of transformative work in stem cell and gene therapy through their enthusiastic support for Proposition 71 and funding at a critical time in the early days of regenerative medicine. Their recent additional generous contributions to USC, UCLA and UCSF helped to further advance that work. Eli and Edye understood the critical role of science in making the world a better place. Through these gifts and their enabling support of the Broad Institute with Harvard and MIT, they have left a lasting legacy in the advancement of medicine that cannot be overstated.”
Through the Broad Foundation he helped fund groundbreaking work not just in science but also education and the arts. Gerun Riley, President of the Broad Foundation says Eli was always interested in improving the lives of others.
“As a businessman Eli saw around corners, as a philanthropist he saw the problems in the world and tried to fix them, as a citizen he saw the possibility in our shared community, and as a husband, father, mentor and friend he saw the potential in each of us.”
In 2005, the New Oxford American Dictionary named “podcast” its word of the year. At the time a podcast was something many had heard of but not that many actually tuned in to. My how times have changed. Now there are some two million podcasts to chose from, at least according to the New York Times, and who am I to question them.
Yesterday, in the same New York Times, TV writer Margaret Lyons, wrote about how the pandemic helped turn her from TV to podcasts: “Much in the way I grew to prefer an old-fashioned phone call to a video chat, podcasts, not television, became my go-to medium in quarantine. With their shorter lead times and intimate production values, they felt more immediate and more relevant than ever before.”
I mention this because an old colleague of ours at CIRM, Neil Littman, has just launched his own podcast and the first guest on it was Jonathan Thomas, Chair of the CIRM Board. Their conversation ranged from CIRM’s past to the future of the regenerative field as a whole, with a few interesting diversions along the way. It’s fun listening. And as Margaret Lyons said it might be more immediate and more relevant than ever before.
Have you ever been at a party where someone says “hey, I’ve got a good idea” and then before you know it everyone in the room is adding to it with ideas and suggestions of their own and suddenly you find yourself with 27 pages of notes, all of them really great ideas. No, me neither. At least, not until yesterday when we held the first meeting of our Scientific Strategy Advisory Panel.
This is a group that was set up as part of Proposition 14, the ballot initiative that refunded CIRM last November (thanks again everyone who voted for that). The idea was to create a panel of world class scientists and regulatory experts to help guide and advise our Board on how to advance our mission. It’s a pretty impressive group too. You can see who is on the SSAP here.
The meeting involved some CIRM grantees talking a little about their work but mostly highlighting problems or obstacles they considered key issues for the future of the field as a whole. And that’s where the ideas and suggestions really started flowing hard and fast.
It started out innocently enough with Dr. Amander Clark of UCLA talking about some of the needs for Discovery or basic research. She advocated for a consortium approach (this quickly became a theme for many other experts) with researchers collaborating and sharing data and findings to help move the field along.
She also called for greater diversity in research, including collecting diverse cell samples at the basic research level, so that if a program advanced to later stages the findings would be relevant to a wide cross section of society rather than just a narrow group.
Dr. Clark also said that as well as supporting research into neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, there needed to be a greater emphasis on neurological conditions such as autism, bipolar disorder and other mental health problems.
(CIRM is already committed to both increasing diversity at all levels of research and expanding mental health research so this was welcome confirmation we are on the right track).
Dr. Mike McCun called for CIRM to take a leadership role in funding fetal tissue research, things the federal government can’t or won’t support, saying this could really help in developing an understanding of prenatal diseases.
Dr. Christine Mummery, President of ISSCR, advocated for support for early embryo research to deepen our understanding of early human development and also help with issues of infertility.
Then the ideas started coming really fast:
There’s a need for knowledge networks to share information in real-time not months later after results are published.
We need standardization across the field to make it easier to compare study results.
We need automation to reduce inconsistency in things like feeding and growing cells, manufacturing cells etc.
Equitable access to CRISPR gene-editing treatments, particularly for underserved communities and for rare diseases where big pharmaceutical companies are less likely to invest the money needed to develop a treatment.
Do a better job of developing combination therapies – involving stem cells and more traditional medications.
One idea that seemed to generate a lot of enthusiasm – perhaps as much due to the name that Patrik Brundin of the Van Andel Institute gave it – was the creation of a CIRM Hotel California, a place where researchers could go to learn new techniques, to share ideas, to collaborate and maybe take a nice cold drink by the pool (OK, I just made that last bit up to see if you were paying attention).
The meeting was remarkable not just for the flood of ideas, but also for its sense of collegiality. Peter Marks, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (FDA-CBER) captured that sense perfectly when he said the point of everyone working together, collaborating, sharing information and data, is to get these projects over the finish line. The more we work together, the more we will succeed.
Larry Goldstein PhD, has many titles, one of which sums up his career perfectly, “Distinguished Professor”. Dr. Goldstein has distinguished himself on many fronts, making him an ideal addition to the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).
“I look forward to working with the ICOC and CIRM staff to ensure that the best and most promising stem cell research and medicine is fostered and funded,” Larry said.
For more than 25 years Larry’s work has targeted the brain and, in particular, Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
In 2012 his team was the first to create stem cell models for two different forms of Alzheimer’s, the hereditary and the sporadic forms. This gave researchers a new way of studying the disease, helping them better understand what causes it and looking at new ways of treating it.
He was appointed to the CIRM Board by Pradeep Khosla, the Chancellor of U.C. San Diego saying he is “gratified you are assuming this important role.”
Jonathan Thomas, JD, PhD., Chair of the CIRM Board, welcome the appointment saying “I have known Larry for many years and have nothing but the highest regard for him as a scientist, a leader, and a great champion of stem cell research. He is also an innovative thinker and that will be invaluable to us as we move into a second chapter in the life of CIRM.”
Larry was born in Buffalo, New York and grew up in Thousand Oaks, California. He graduated from UC San Diego with a degree in Biology in 1976 and from the University of Washington with a Ph. D. in Genetics in 1980. He joined the faculty in Cell and Developmental Biology at Harvard University in 1984 where he was promoted to Full Professor with tenure in 1990. He returned to UC San Diego and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1993. After 45 years pursuing cutting edge lab-based research Larry is now transitioning to an administrative and executive role at UC San Diego where he will serve as the Senior Advisor for Stem Cell Research and Policy to the Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences.
He replaces David Brenner who is standing down after completing two terms on the Board.
The Stem Cellar 