Maria Millan

State Stem Cell & Gene Therapy Agency Sets up Support Program to Help Patients Participate in Clinical Trials

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For many patients battling deadly diseases, getting access to a clinical trial can be life-saving, but it can also be very challenging. Today the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) approved a concept plan to make it financially and logistically easier for patients to take part in CIRM-funded clinical trials.

The plan will create a Patient Support Program (PSP) to provide support to California patients being evaluated or enrolled in CIRM-supported clinical trials, with a particular emphasis on helping underserved populations.

“Helping scientists develop stem cell and gene therapies is just part of what we do at CIRM. If those clinical trials and resulting therapies are not accessible to the people of California, who are making all this possible, then we have not fulfilled our mission.” says Maria T. Millan, M.D., President and CEO of CIRM.

The Patient Support Plan will offer a range of services including:

  • Clinical trial navigation, directing patients to appropriate CIRM-supported clinical trials.
  • Logistical support for patients being evaluated or enrolled in clinical trials.
  • Financial support for under resourced and underserved populations in CIRM-supported clinical trials, including the CIRM Patient Assistance Fund (PAF).  This support includes transportation/travel expenses, such as gasoline, tolls, parking, airfare, taxi, train, lodging, and meals during travel.
  • Providing nurse navigator support for the psychosocial, emotional, and practical needs of patients and their families.

The funds for the PSP are set aside under Proposition 14, the voter-approved initiative that re-funded CIRM in 2020. Under Prop 14 CIRM money that CIRM grantees earn from licensing, inventions or technologies is to be spent “offsetting the costs of providing treatments and cures arising from institute-funded research to California patients who have insufficient means to purchase such treatment or cure, including the reimbursement of patient-qualified costs for research participants.”

Currently, the CIRM Licensing Revenues and Royalties Fund has a balance of $15.6 million derived from royalty payments.

“The patient support program and financial resources will not only help patients in need, it will also help increase the likelihood that these clinical trials will succeed,” says Sean Turbeville, Ph.D., Vice President of Medical Affairs and Policy at CIRM. “We know cell and gene therapies can be particularly challenging for patients and their families. The financial challenges, the long-distance traveling, extended evaluation, and family commitments can make it difficult to enroll and retain patients. The aim of the PSP is to change that.”

The overall objective of this funding opportunity is to establish a statewide program that, over five years, is expected to support hundreds of patients in need as they participate in the growing number of CIRM-supported clinical trials. The program is expected to cost between $300,000 to $500,000 a year. That money will come from the Medical Affairs budget and not out of the patient assistance fund.

The first phase of the program will identify an organization, through a competitive process, that has the expertise to provide patient support services including:

  • Maintaining a call and support center.
  • Assessing patient eligibility for financial assistance.
  • Reporting to CIRM on patients needs and center performance

 You can find more information about the Patient Support Program on our website here and here.

Creating a ‘bespoke’ approach to rare diseases

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Up until recently the word “bespoke” meant just one thing to me, a hand-made suit, customized and fitted to you. There’s a street in London, Saville Row, that specializes in these suits. They’re gorgeous. They’re also very expensive and so I thought I’d never have a bespoke anything.

I was wrong. Because CIRM is now part of a bespoke arrangement. It has nothing to do with suits, it’s far more important than that. This bespoke group is aiming to create tailor-made gene therapies for rare diseases.

It’s called the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium (BGTC). Before we go any further I should warn you there’s a lot of acronyms heading your way. The BGTC is part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® (AMP®) program. This is a public-private partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and multiple public and private organizations, such as CIRM.

The program is managed by the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH) and it aims to develop platforms and standards that will speed the development and delivery of customized or ‘bespoke’ gene therapies that could treat the millions of people affected by rare diseases.

Why is it necessary? Well, it’s estimated that there are around 7,000 rare diseases and these affect between 25-30 million Americans. Some of these diseases affect only a few hundred, or even a few dozen people. With so few people they almost always struggle to raise the funds needed to do research to find an effective therapy. However, many of these rare diseases are linked to a mutation or defect in a single gene, which means they could potentially be treated by highly customizable, “bespoke” gene therapy approaches.

Right now, individual disease programs tend to try individual approaches to developing a treatment. That’s time consuming and expensive. The newly formed BGTC believes that if we create a standardized approach, we could develop a template that can be widely used to develop bespoke gene therapies quickly, more efficiently and less expensively for a wide array of rare diseases.

“At CIRM we have funded several projects using gene therapy to help treat, and even cure, people with rare diseases such as severe combined immunodeficiency,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, the President and CEO of CIRM. “But even an agency with our resources can only do so much. This agreement with the Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium will enable us to be part of a bigger partnership, one that can advance the field, overcome obstacles and lead to breakthroughs for many rare diseases.”

With gene therapy the goal is to identify the genetic defect that is causing the disease and then deliver a normal copy of the gene to the right tissues and organs in the body, replacing or correcting the mutation that caused the problem. But what is the best way to deliver that gene? 

The BGTC’s is focusing on using an adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a delivery vehicle. This approach has already proven effective in Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and spinal muscular atrophy. The consortium will test several different approaches using AAV gene therapies starting with basic research and supporting those all the way to clinical trials. The knowledge gained from this collaborative approach, including developing ways to manufacture these AAVs and creating a standard regulatory approach, will help build a template that can then be used for other rare diseases to copy.

As part of the consortium CIRM will identify specific rare disease gene therapy research programs in California that are eligible to be part of the AMP BGTC. CIRM funding can then support the IND-enabling research, manufacturing and clinical trial activities of these programs.

“This knowledge network/consortium model fits in perfectly with our mission of accelerating transformative regenerative medicine treatments to a diverse California and world,” says Dr. Millan. “It is impossible for small, often isolated, groups of patients around the world to fund research that will help them. But pooling our resources, our skills and knowledge with the consortium means the work we support here may ultimately benefit people everywhere.”

Join us to hear how stem cell and gene therapy are taking on diseases of aging

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It is estimated that as many as 90 percent of people in industrialized countries who die every day, die from diseases of aging such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Of those still alive the numbers aren’t much more reassuring. More than 80 percent of people over the age of 65 have a chronic medical condition, while 68 percent have two or more.

Current medications can help keep some of those conditions, such as high blood pressure, under control but regenerative medicine wants to do a lot more than that. We want to turn back the clock and restore function to damaged organs and tissues and limbs. That research is already underway and we are inviting you to a public event to hear all about that work and the promise it holds.

On June 16th from 3p – 4.30p PST we are holding a panel discussion exploring the impact of regenerative medicine on aging. We’ll hear from experts on heart disease and stroke; we will look at other ground breaking research into aging; and we’ll discuss the vital role patients and patient advocates play in helping advance this work.

The discussion is taking place in San Francisco at the annual conference of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. But you can watch it from the comfort of your own home. That’s because we are going to live stream the event.

Here’s where you can see the livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaUgsc5alDI

And if you have any questions you would like the panel to answer feel free to send them to us at info@cirm.ca.gov

Stem Cell Agency Hires New Vice President of Medical Affairs & Policy

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Dr. Sean Turbeville

Sean Turbeville PhD. is joining the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) as the Vice President of Medical Affairs and Policy.

Dr. Turbeville has almost 20 years of experience in Medical Affairs, creating strategies and teams for biopharma and digital healthcare companies. He has experience supporting the development of therapies in cancer, neurology, metabolic and genetic disorders and in working with Regulatory Authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration, EMA and others.  

Sean has a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center where he later taught courses as an Adjunct Associate Professor. He is the owner of two global regulatory resources for biopharma, “The Global Regulatory Framework for Medical Information in the Pharmaceutical Industry” and “The Global Guide to Compassionate Use Programs”. Before joining CIRM, Dr. Turbeville was the President of Matanzas Group, a Medical Affairs consultancy providing a range of Medical Affairs services to over 20 small, growing biopharmaceutical companies.  

CIRM’s Vice Chair, Sen. (ret) Art Torres says Dr. Turbeville is a great addition to the team: “Sean’s expertise will be invaluable to our working group and to our coordination with the Governor and Legislature on affordability and accessibility issues affecting patients.”

“I am honored to work at CIRM, where science, business, regulatory and policy work together to accelerate world class science and provide Californians equal accessibility to novel therapies,” says Dr. Turbeville. “It’s a unique opportunity to give back to the state that has given me and my family so much.”   

The VP of Medical Affairs and Policy is a new position and Dr. Turbeville will have responsibility for overseeing a Medical Affairs Team that will work with the CIRM team, the Accessibility and Affordability Working Group and the board to develop healthcare policy, reimbursement strategy, post-market activities and research. He will also oversee and develop CIRM’s infrastructure programs for clinical trials and the delivery of therapies, in particular the Alpha Clinics Network and the future Community Care Centers of Excellence.

“As CIRM drives more transformative regenerative therapies to the clinics, we set a bold strategic goal to deliver a roadmap for access and affordability of these treatments to all patient communities. We are extremely excited to have Sean as a qualified leader and expert in the field to lead this charge,” says Maria Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO. “He has been a mission-driven patient advocate and board member of the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation which he joined after losing his father. In this role, he drove the creation of alliances with companies to increase access to clinical trials for patients with this devastating cancer.”

Dr. Turbeville joins the growing ranks of new team members that CIRM has hired since the passage of Proposition 14 in November 2020. CIRM is rebuilding and expanding its team to meet new challenges and advance the mission of the agency.

Among the new hires is Linda Nevin, PhD, who joined us as a Senior Science Officer on the Review and Portfolio Development Team. Linda is a former Associate Editor for the journal PLOS Medicine and brings detailed experience with data sharing, health equity research, large cohort studies, and machine learning in medicine.Linda got her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF and has a BS/MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford.

Katie Sharify is the new Communications Team Coordinator, but she has a long history of involvement with CIRM. More than ten years ago Katie was a patient in the first clinical trial CIRM funded, a stem cell therapy aimed at helping people with spinal cord injuries. Since then, Katie has been a tireless supporter and advocate on behalf of CIRM, so we were delighted to be able to make her a full-time member of the team.

Maziar Shah Mohammed, PhD, a Senior Science Officer in our Scientific Programs group, has undergraduate and master’s degrees in Materials Science and Engineering and he got his PhD in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering from McGill University in Canada. He comes to CIRM with experience in academic research, the medical device industry and, most recently as a Lead Reviewer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).

Lisa McGinley, PhD, joined CIRM as a Senior Science Officer in Therapeutics and Development. She has expertise in stem cell therapy discovery, development and translation in cardiovascular and neurology spaces. She received her PhD in Regenerative Medicine from the National University of Ireland, Galway and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Bioengineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Most recently she was an Assistant Professor in Neurology at the University of Michigan, where she led an NIH-funded collaborative stem cell initiative developing therapeutics for ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. 

Treecy Truc Nguyen is CIRM’s new Project Manager in the Therapeutics Development group. Treecy got her BSHS and MPH from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Before joining CIRM she was the Senior Systems Manager at The Unity Council, a non-profit community development organization committed to social equality and improving the quality of life in traditionally underserved communities.

The new team members are:

  • Claudette Mandac
    Project Manager, Review 
  • Mitra Hooshmand
    SSO, Special Projects and Strategic Initiatives
  • Vanessa Singh
    HR Manager
  • Pouneh Simpson
    Director of Finance
  • Alexandra Caraballo
    Grants Management Specialist
  • Kevin Marks
    General Counsel
  • Michael Bunch
    Business Services Officer
  • Rosa Canet-Aviles
    Vice President, Science
  • Uta Grieshammer
    SSO, Science
  • Linda Nevin
    SSO, Review and Portfolio
  • Stephanie Bautista
    Executive Assistant to the President
  • Mason Saia
  • Software Engineer
  • Marianne Villablanca
    Associate Director, Board Relations
  • Katie Sharify
    Communications Team Coordinator
  • Lisa McGinley
    SSO, Therapeutics
  • Esteban Cortez
    Director, Marketing and Communications
  • Maziar Shah Mohammadi
    SSO, Scientific Programs
  • Treecy Truc Nguyen
    Project Manager, Therapeutics
  • Sean Turbeville
    Vice President, Medical Affairs & Policy

CIRM Board gives thumbs up to training and treatment programs

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CIRM Bridges student discusses her poster presentation

At CIRM, the bread and butter of what we do is funding research and hopefully advancing therapies to patients. But the jam, that’s our education programs. Helping train the next generation of stem cell and gene therapy scientists is really inspiring. Watching these young students – and some are just high school juniors – come in and grasp the science and quickly become fluent in talking about it and creating their own experiments shows the future is in good hands.

Right now we fund several programs, such as our SPARK and Bridges internships, but they can’t cover everything, so last week the CIRM Board approved a new training program called COMPASS (Creating Opportunities through Mentorship and Partnership Across Stem Cell Science). The program will fill a critical need for skilled research practitioners who understand and contribute at all levels in the translation of science to medicine, from bench to bedside.

The objective of the COMPASS Training Program is to prepare a diverse group of undergraduate students for careers in regenerative medicine through the creation of novel recruitment and support mechanisms that identify and foster untapped talent within populations that are historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences. It will combine hands-on research with mentorship experiences to enhance transition of students to successful careers. A parallel objective is to foster greater awareness and appreciation of diversity, equity and inclusion in trainees, mentors, and other program participants

The CIRM Board approved investing $58.22 million for up to 20 applications for a five-year duration.

“This new program highlights our growing commitment to creating a diverse workforce, one that taps into communities that have been historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, President and CEO of CIRM. “The COVID19 pandemic made it clear that the benefits of scientific discovery are not always accessible to communities that most need them. CIRM is committed to tackling these challenges by creating a diverse and dedicated workforce that can meet the technical demands of taking novel treatment ideas and making them a reality.”

The Board also approved a new $80 million concept plan to expand the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic Network. The Network clinics are all in top California medical centers that have the experience and the expertise to deliver high-quality FDA-authorized stem cell clinical trials to patients.

There are currently five Alpha Clinics – UC San Diego; UCLA/UC Irvine; City of Hope; UCSF; UC Davis – and since 2015 they have hosted more than 105 clinical trials, enrolled more than 750 patients in these trials, and generated more than $95 million in industry contracts. 

Each award will provide up to $8 million in funding over a five-year period. The clinics will have to include:

  • A demonstrated ability to offer stem cell and gene therapies to patients as part of a clinical trial.
  • Programs to help support the career development of doctors, nurses, researchers or other medical professionals essential for regenerative medicine clinical trials.
  • A commitment to data sharing and meeting CIRM’s requirements addressing issues of diversity, equity and inclusion and meeting the needs of California’s diverse patient population.

Creating a New Model for Diversity in Scientific and Medical Research

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Nature Cell Biology cover

The global pandemic has highlighted many of the inequities in our health care system, with the virus hitting communities of color the hardest. That has led to calls for greater diversity, equity and inclusion at every level of scientific research and, ultimately, of medical care. A recently released article in the journal Nature Cell Biology, calls for “new models for basic and disease research that reflect diverse ancestral backgrounds and sex and ensure that diverse populations are included among donors and research participants.”

The authors of the article are Dr. Maria T. Millan, CIRM’s President & CEO; Rick Horwitz Senior Advisor and Executive Director, Emeritus, Allen Institute for Cell Science; Dr. Ekemini Riley, President, Coalition for Aligning Science; and Dr. Ruwanthi N. Gunawardane, Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Cell Science.

Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President & CEO, says we need to make these issues a part of everything we do. “At CIRM we have incorporated the principles of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in our research funding programs, education programs and future programs. We believe this is essential to ensure that the therapies our support helps advance will reach all patients in need and in particular communities that are disproportionately affected and/or under-served.”

The article highlights how, in addition to cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors, genetic factors also appear to play a role in the way disease affects different people. For example, 50 percent of people in South Asia have genetic traits that increases their risk for severe COVID-19, in contrast only 16 percent of Europeans have those traits.

But while some studies have shown how African American men are at greater risk for prostate cancer than white men, most of the research in this and other areas has been done on white populations of European ancestry. Efforts are already underway to change these disparities. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has sponsored the All of Us Research Program, which is inviting one million people across the U.S. to help build one of the most diverse health databases in history.

The article in Nature Cell Biology stresses the need to account for diversity at the individual molecular, cellular and tissue level. The authors make the point that diversity in those taking part in clinical trials is essential, but equally essential is that diverse biology is accounted for in the scientific work that leads to the development of potential therapies in order to increase the likelihood of success.

That’s why the authors of the article say: “If we are to truly understand human biology, address health disparities, and personalize our treatments, we need to go beyond our important, ongoing efforts in addressing diversity and inclusion in the workforce and the delivery of healthcare. We need to improve the data we generate by including diverse populations among donors and research participants. This will require new models and tools for basic and disease research that more closely reflect the diversity of human tissues, across diverse donor backgrounds.”

“Greater diversity in biological studies is not only the right thing to do, it is crucial to helping researchers make new discoveries that benefit everyone,” said Ru Gunawardane, Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Cell Science.

To do this they propose creating “a suite” of research cells, such as human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines from a diverse group of individuals to reflect the racial, ethnic and gender composition of the population. Human iPSCs are cells taken from any tissue (usually skin or blood) from a child or adult that have been genetically modified to behave like an embryonic stem cell. As the name implies, these cells are pluripotent, which means that they can become any type of adult cell.

CIRM has already created one version of what this suite would look like, through its iPSC Repository, a collection of more than 2,600 hiPSCs from individuals of diverse ancestries, including African, Hispanic, Native American, East and South Asian, and European. The Allen Institute for Cell Science also has a collection that could serve as a model for this kind of repository. Its collection of over 50 hiPSC

lines have been thoroughly analyzed on both a genomic and biological level and could also be broken down to include diversity in donor ethnicity and sex.

Currently researchers use cells from different lines and often follow very different procedures in using them, making it hard to compare results from one study to another. Having a diverse and well defined collection of research cells and cell models that are created by standardized procedures, could make it easier to compare results from different studies and share knowledge within the scientific community. By incorporating diversity in the very early stages of scientific research, the scientists and therapy developers gain a more complete picture of the biology disease and potential treatments.  

A year unlike any other – a look back at one year post Prop 14

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State flag of California

2020 was, by any standards, a pretty wacky year. Pandemic. Political convulsions. And a huge amount of uncertainty as to the funding of life-saving therapies at CIRM. Happily those all turned out OK. We got vaccines to take care of COVID. The election was won fair and square (seriously). And Proposition 14 was approved by the voters of California, re-funding your favorite state Stem Cell Agency.

But for a while, quite a while, there was uncertainty surrounding our future. For a start, once the pandemic lockdown kicked in it was impossible for people to go out and collect the signatures needed to place Proposition 14 on the November ballot. So the organizers of the campaign reached out online, using petitions that people could print out and sign and mail in.

It worked. But even after getting all the signatures needed they faced problems such as how do you campaign to get something passed, when the normal channels are not available. The answer is you get very creative very quickly.

Bob Klein

Bob Klein, the driving force behind both Proposition 71 (the 2004 ballot initiative that created CIRM) and Proposition 14, says it was challenging:

“It was a real adventure. It’s always hard, you have a complicated message about stem cells and genetics and therapy and it’s always a challenge to get a million signatures for a ballot initiative but in the middle of a pandemic where we had to shut down the signature gathering at grocery stores and street corners, where we had to go to petitions that had to be sent to voters and get them to fill them out properly and send them back. And of course the state went into an economic recoil because of the pandemic and people were worried about the money.”

Challenging absolutely, but ultimately successful. On November 13, ten days after the election, Prop 14 was declared the winner.

As our President and CEO, Dr. Maria Millan says, we went from an agency getting ready to close its doors to one ramping up for a whole new adventure.

“We faced many challenges in 2020. CIRM’s continued existence was hinging on the passage of a new bond initiative and we began the year uncertain if it would even make it on the ballot.  We had a plan in place to wind down and close operations should additional funding not materialize.  During the unrest and challenges brought by 2020, and functioning in a virtual format, we retained our core group of talented individuals who were able to mobilize our emergency covid research funding round, continue to advance our important research programs and clinical trials and initiate the process of strategic planning in the event that CIRM was reauthorized through a new bond initiative. Fortunately, we planned for success and Proposition 14 passed against all odds!”

“When California said “Yes,” the CIRM team was positioned to launch the next Era of CIRM! We have recruited top talent to grow the team and have developed a new strategic plan and evolved our mission:  Accelerating world-class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments to a diverse California and worldwide in an equitable manner.” 

And since that close call we have been very busy. In the last year we have hired 16 new employees, everyone from a new General Counsel to the Director of Finance, and more are on the way as we ramp up our ability to turn our new vision into a reality.

We have also been working hard to ensure we could continue to fund groundbreaking research from the early-stage Discovery work, to testing therapies in patients in clinical trials. Altogether our Board has approved almost $250 million in 56 new awards since December 2020. That includes:

Clinical – $84M (9 awards)

Translational – $15M (3 awards)

Discovery – $13M (11 awards)

Education – $138M (33 awards)

We have also enrolled more than 360 new patients in clinical trials that we fund or that are being carried out in the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic network.

This is a good start, but we know we have a lot more work to do in the coming years.

The last year has flown by and brought more than its fair share of challenges. But the CIRM team has shown that it can rise to those, in person and remotely, and meet them head on. We are already looking forward to 2022. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Wit, wisdom and a glimpse into the future

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As of this moment, there are over two million podcasts and over 48 million episodes to listen to on your favorite listening device. If you’re a true crime enthusiast like me, you’ve surely heard of Casefile or one of the other 94 podcasts on the topic. But what if you’re looking for something a little less ghastly and a little more uplifting?

Dr. Daylon James, co-host of The Stem Cell Podcast

The Stem Cell Podcast is an informative and entertaining resource for scientists and science enthusiasts (or really, anyone) interested in learning about the latest developments in stem cell research.

Dr. Arun Sharma, co-host of The Stem Cell Podcast

On their latest episode, dynamic co-hosts and research scientists Dr. Daylon James and Dr. Arun Sharma sit down with our President & CEO, Dr. Maria Millan, to discuss the impact of California’s culture of innovation on CIRM, the challenge of balancing hope vs. hype in the context of stem cell research/therapies, and the evolution of the agency over the past 15 years.

Listen on as Dr. Millan highlights some of CIRM’s greatest victories and shares our mission for the future.

A new approach to a deadly childhood cancer

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Cancers of the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes (also called hematologic malignancies) are the most common form of cancer in children and young adults. Current treatments can be effective but can also pose life-threatening health risks to the child. Now researchers at Stanford have developed a new approach and the Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) voted to support that approach in a clinical trial.

The Board approved investing $11,996,634 in the study, which is the Stem Cell Agency’s 76th clinical trial.

The current standard of care for cancers such as acute leukemias and lymphomas is chemotherapy and a bone marrow (also called HSCT) transplant. However, without a perfectly matched donor the risk of the patient’s body rejecting the transplant is higher. Patients may also be at greater risk of graft vs host disease (GVHD), where the donor cells attack the patient’s body. In severe cases GVHD can be life-threatening.

Dr. Maria Grazia Roncarlo: Photo courtesy Stanford

Dr. Maria Grazia Roncarolo and her team at Stanford will test an immunotherapy cell approach using a therapy that is enriched with specialized immune cells called type 1 regulatory T (Tr1) cells. These cells will be infused into the patient following the bone marrow transplant. Both the Tr1 cells and the bone marrow will come from the same donor. The hope is this will help provide the patient’s immune system with these regulatory cells to combat life-threatening graft versus host disease and increase the success of treatment and bone marrow (HSCT) transplant.

“Every year around 500 children receive stem cell transplants in California, and while many children do well, too many experiences a rejection of the transplant or a relapse of the cancer,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, President and CEO of CIRM. “Finding an improved therapy for these children means a shorter stay in the hospital, less risk of the need for a second transplant, and a greater quality of life for the child and the whole family.”

The CIRM Board has previously approved funding for 12 other clinical trials targeting cancers of the blood. You can read about them here.

We’ve got cash, here’s how you can get some

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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?

Yes, they do.  Here is a link to various CIRM DISC Awards that fall within the cancer category.  https://www.cirm.ca.gov/grants?disease_focus%5B%5D=1427&program_type%5B%5D=1230

Will Disc1 (Inception awards) and/or seed funding mechanisms become available again?

CIRM is anticipating launching a program to meet this need toward the end of this year.

For DISC award is possible to contact a grant advisor for advice before applying?

Please email discovery@cirm.ca.gov to discuss Discovery stage applications before applying

Is co-funding requirement a MUST for clinical trials?

Co-funding requirements vary.  Please refer to the following link for more information: https://www.cirm.ca.gov/sites/default/files/files/about_cirm/CLIN2_Mini_Brochure2.pdf

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 has funded several late-stage Phase III/potentially pivotal clinical trials. You can view them here: https://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-impact/funding-clinical-trials

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

Here are the slides used in the presentations.