As a state agency we focus most of our efforts and nearly all our money on California. That’s what we were set up to do. But that doesn’t mean we don’t also look outside the borders of California to try and find the best research, and the most promising therapies, to help people in need.
Today’s meeting of the CIRM Board was the first time we have had a chance to partner with one of the leading research facilities in the country focusing on children and rare diseases; St. Jude Children’s Researech Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
St. Jude is getting $11.9 million to run a Phase I/II clinical trial for x-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disorder (SCID), a catastrophic condition where children are born without a functioning immune system. Because they are unable to fight off infections, many children born with SCID die in the first few years of life.
St. Jude is teaming up with researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to genetically modify the patient’s own blood stem cells, hopefully creating a new blood system and repairing the damaged immune system. St. Jude came up with the method of doing this, UCSF will treat the patients. Having that California component to the clinical trial is what makes it possible for us to fund this work.
This is the first time CIRM has funded work with St. Jude and reflects our commitment to moving the most promising research into clinical trials in people, regardless of whether that work originates inside or outside California.
The Board also voted to fund researchers at Cedars-Sinai to run a clinical trial on ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Like SCID, ALS is a rare disease. As Randy Mills, our President and CEO, said in a news release:
CIRM CEO and President, Randy Mills.
“While making a funding decision at CIRM we don’t just look at how many people are affected by a disease, we also look at the severity of the disease on the individual and the potential for impacting other diseases. While the number of patients afflicted by these two diseases may be small, their need is great. Additionally, the potential to use these approaches in treating other disease is very real. The underlying technology used in treating SCID, for example, has potential application in other areas such as sickle cell disease and HIV/AIDS.”
We have written several blogs about the research that cured children with SCID.
The Board also approved funding for a clinical trial to develop a treatment for type 1 diabetes (T1D). This is an autoimmune disease that affects around 1.25 million Americans, and millions more around the globe.
T1D is where the body’s own immune system attacks the cells that produce insulin, which is needed to control blood sugar levels. If left untreated it can result in serious, even life-threatening, complications such as vision loss, kidney damage and heart attacks.
Researchers at Caladrius Biosciences will take cells, called regulatory T cells (Tregs), from the patient’s own immune system, expand the number of those cells in the lab and enhance them to make them more effective at preventing the autoimmune attack on the insulin-producing cells.
The focus is on newly-diagnosed adolescents because studies show that at the time of diagnosis T1D patients usually have around 20 percent of their insulin-producing cells still intact. It’s hoped by intervening early the therapy can protect those cells and reduce the need for patients to rely on insulin injections.
David J. Mazzo, Ph.D., CEO of Caladrius Biosciences, says this is hopeful news for people with type 1 diabetes:
David Mazzo
“We firmly believe that this therapy has the potential to improve the lives of people with T1D and this grant helps us advance our Phase 2 clinical study with the goal of determining the potential for CLBS03 to be an effective therapy in this important indication.”
Related Links:
The Stem Cellar 