Stanford

CIRM Board Approves Funding for New Clinical Trial Targeting Brain Tumors

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The governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded almost $12 million to carry out a clinical trial targeting brain tumors.

This brings the total number of CIRM funded clinical trials to 83.  

$11,999,984 was awarded to Dr. Jana Portnow at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope. They are using Neural stem cells (NSCs) as a form of delivery vehicle to carry a cancer-killing virus that specifically targets brain tumor cells.

Glioblastoma is the most common malignant primary brain tumor in adults and each year about 12,000 Americans are diagnosed. The 5-year survival rate is only about 10%.

The current standard of care involves surgically removing the tumor followed by radiation, chemotherapy, and alternating electric field therapy. Despite these treatments, survival remains low.

The award to Dr. Portnow will fund a clinical trial to assess the safety and effectiveness of this stem cell-based treatment for Glioblastoma.

The Board also awarded $3,111,467 to Dr. Boris Minev of Calidi Biotherapeutics. This award is in the form of a CLIN1 grant, with the goal of completing the testing needed to apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to start a clinical trial in people.

This project uses donor fat-derived mesenchymal stem cells that have been loaded with oncolytic virus to target metastatic melanoma, triple negative breast cancer, and advanced head & neck squamous cell carcinoma.

“There are few options for patients with advanced solid tumor cancers such as glioblastoma, melanoma, breast cancer, and head & neck cancer,” says Maria T. Millan, M.D., President and CEO of CIRM. “Surgical resection, chemotherapy and radiation are largely  ineffective in advanced cases and survival typically is measured in months. These new awards will support novel approaches to address the unmet medical needs of patients with these devastating cancers.”

The CIRM Board also voted to approve awarding $71,949,539 to expand the CIRM Alpha Clinics Network. The current network consists of six sites and the Board approved continued funding for those and added an additional three sites. The funding is to last five years.

The goal of the Alpha Clinics award is to expand existing capacities for delivering stem cell, gene therapies and other advanced treatment to patients. They also serve as a competency hub for regenerative medicine training, clinical research, and the delivery of approved treatments.

Each applicant was required to submit a plan for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to support and facilitate outreach and study participation by underserved and disproportionately affected populations in the clinical trials they serve.

The successful applicants are:

ApplicationProgram TitleInstitution/Principal InvestigatorAmount awarded
INFR4-13579The Stanford Alpha Stem Cell ClinicStanford University – Matthew Porteus  $7,997,246  
INFR4-13581UCSF Alpha Stem Cell ClinicU.C. San Francisco – Mark Walters  $7,994,347  
INFR4-13586A comprehensive stem cell and gene therapy clinic to
advance new therapies for a diverse patient
population in California  		Cedars-Sinai Medical Center – Michael Lewis  $7,957,966    
INFR4-13587The City of Hope Alpha Clinic: A roadmap for equitable and inclusive access to regenerative medicine therapies for all Californians  City of Hope – Leo Wang  $8,000,000
INFR4-13596Alpha Stem Cell Clinic for Northern and Central California  U.C. Davis – Mehrdad Abedi  $7,999,997  
INFR4-13685Expansion of the Alpha Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Clinic at UCLA  U.C. Los Angeles – Noah Federman  $8,000,000
INFR4-13878Alpha Clinic Network Expansion for Cell and Gene Therapies  University of Southern California – Thomas Buchanan  $7,999,983  
INFR4-13952A hub and spoke community model to equitably deliver regenerative medicine therapies to diverse populations across four California counties  U.C. Irvine – Daniela Bota  $8,000,000
INFR4-13597UC San Diego Health CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinic  U.C. San Diego – Catriona Jamieson  $8,000,000

The Board also unanimously, and enthusiastically, approved the election of Maria Gonzalez Bonneville to be the next Vice Chair of the Board. Ms. Bonneville, the current Vice President of Public Outreach and Board Governance at CIRM, was nominated by all four constitutional officers: the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Treasurer and the Controller.

In supporting the nomination, Board member Ysabel Duron said: “I don’t think we could do better than taking on Maria Gonzalez Bonneville as the Vice Chair. She is well educated as far as CIRM goes. She has a great track record; she is empathetic and caring and will be a good steward for the taxpayers to ensure the work we do serves them well.”

In her letter to the Board applying for the position, Ms. Bonneville said: “CIRM is a unique agency with a large board and a long history. With my institutional knowledge and my understanding of CIRM’s internal workings and processes, I can serve as a resource for the new Chair. I have worked hand-in-hand with both the Chair and Vice Chair in setting agendas, prioritizing work, driving policy, and advising accordingly.  I have worked hard to build trusted relationships with all of you so that I could learn and understand what areas were of the most interest and where I could help shed light on those particular programs or initiatives. I have also worked closely with Maria Millan for the last decade, and greatly enjoy our working relationship. In short, I believe I provide a level of continuity and expertise that benefits the board and helps in times of transition.”

In accepting the position Ms. Bonneville said: “I am truly honored to be elected as the Vice Chair for the CIRM Board. I have been a part of CIRM for 11 years and am deeply committed to the mission and this new role gives me an opportunity to help support and advance that work at an exciting time in the Agency’s life. There are many challenges ahead of us but knowing the Board and the CIRM team I feel confident we will be able to meet them, and I look forward to helping us reach our goals.”

Ms. Bonneville will officially take office in January 2023.

The vote for the new Chair of CIRM will take place at the Board meeting on December 15th.

A new approach to a deadly childhood cancer

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THIS BLOG IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO CAST

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.

Learning life lessons in the lab

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Rohan Upadhyay, CIRM SPARK student 2021

One of the most amazing parts of an amazing job is getting to know the students who take part in CIRM’s SPARK (Summer Program to Accelerate Regenerative Medicine Knowledge) program. It’s an internship giving high school students, that reflect the diversity of California, a chance to work in a world-class stem cell research facility.

This year because of the pandemic I didn’t get a chance to meet them in person but reading the blogs they wrote about their experiences I feel as if I know them anyway.

The blogs were fun, creative, engaging and dealt with many issues, as well as stem cell and gene therapy research.

A common theme was how hard the students, many of whom knew little about stem cells before they started, had to work just to understand all the scientific jargon.

Areana Ramirez, who did her internship at UC Davis summed it up nicely when she wrote:

“Despite the struggles of taking over an hour to read a scientific article and researching what every other word meant, it was rewarding to know that all of the strain I had put on my brain was going toward a larger understanding of what it means to help others. I may not know everything about osteogenic differentiation or the polyamine pathway, but I do know the adversities that patients with Snyder-Robinson are facing and the work that is being done to help them. I do know how hard each one of our mentors are working to find new cures and are coming up with innovating ideas that will only help humankind.”

Lauren Ginn at City of Hope had the same experience, but said it taught her a valuable lesson:

“Make no mistake, searching for answers through research can sometimes feel like shooting arrows at a bulls-eye out of sight. Nonetheless, what CIRM SPARK has taught me is the potential for exploration that lies in the unknown. This internship showed me that there is so much more to science than the facts printed in textbooks.”

Rohan Upadhyay at UC Davis discovered that even when something doesn’t work out, you can still learn a lot:

“I asked my mentor (Gerhard Bauer) about what he thought had occurred. But unlike the textbooks there was no obvious answer. My mentor and I could only speculate what had occurred. It was at this point that I realized the true nature of research: every research project leads to more questions that need to be answered. As a result there is no endpoint to research. Instead there are only new beginnings.”

Melanie Nguyen, also at UC Davis, wrote her blog as a poem. But she saved the best part for the prose at the end:

“Like a hematopoietic stem cell, I have learned that I am able to pursue my different interests, to be multi-potential. One can indulge in the joys of biology while simultaneously live out their dreams of being an amateur poet. I choose it all. Similarly, a bone marrow stem cell can become whatever it may please—red, white, platelet. It’s ability to divide and differentiate is the source of its ingenuity. I view myself in the same light. Whether I can influence others with research, words, or stories, I know that with each route I will be able to make change in personalized ways.”

For Lizbeth Bonilla, at Stanford, her experiences transcended the personal and took on an even bigger significance:

“As a first-generation Mexican American, my family was thrilled about this internship and opportunity especially knowing it came from a prestigious institution. Unfortunately there is very little to no representation in our community in regards to the S.T.E.M. field. Our dreams of education and prosperity for the future have to be compromised because of the lack of support and resources. To maintain pride in our culture, we focus on work ethics and family, hoping it will be the next generations’ time to bring successful opportunities home. However, while this is a hope widely shared the effort to have it realized is often limited to men. A Latina woman’s success and interest in education are still celebrated, but not expected. As a first-generation Latina, I want to prove that I can have a career and hopefully contribute to raising the next leading generation, not with the hope that dreams are possible but to be living proof that they are.”

Reading the blogs it was sometimes easy to forget these are 16 and 17 year old students. They write with creativity, humor, thoughtfulness and maturity. They learned a lot about stem cell research over the summer. But I think they also learned a lot more about who they are as individuals and what they can achieve.

Paving the Way

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When someone scores a goal in soccer all the attention is lavished on them. Fans chant their name, their teammates pile on top in celebration, their agent starts calling sponsors asking for more money. But there’s often someone else deserving of praise too, that’s the player who provided the assist to make the goal possible in the first place. With that analogy in mind, CIRM just provided a very big assist for a very big goal.

The goal was scored by Jasper Therapeutics. They have just announced data from their Phase 1 clinical trial treating people with Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). This is a group of disorders in which immature blood-forming cells in the bone marrow become abnormal and leads to low numbers of normal blood cells, especially red blood cells. In about one in three patients, MDS can progress to acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rapidly progressing cancer of the bone marrow cells.

The most effective way to treat, and even cure, MDS/AML is with a blood stem cell transplant, but this is often difficult for older patients, because it involves the use of toxic chemotherapy to destroy their existing bone marrow blood stem cells, to make room for the new, healthy ones. Even with a transplant there is often a high rate of relapse, because it’s hard for chemotherapy to kill all the cancer cells.

Jasper has developed a therapy, JSP191, which is a monoclonal antibody, to address this issue. JSP191 helps supplement the current treatment regimen by clearing all the remaining abnormal cells from the bone marrow and preventing relapse. In addition it also means the patients gets smaller doses of chemotherapy with lower levels of toxicity. In this Phase 1 study six patients, between the ages of 65 and 74, were given JSP191 – in combination with low-dose radiation and chemotherapy – prior to getting their transplant. The patients were followed-up at 90 days and five of the six had no detectable levels of MDS/AML, and the sixth patient had reduced levels. None of the patients experienced serious side effects.

Clearly that’s really encouraging news. And while CIRM didn’t fund this clinical trial, it wouldn’t have happened without us paving the way for this research. That’s where the notion of the assist comes in.

CIRM support led to the development of the JSP191 technology at Stanford. Our CIRM funds were used in the preclinical studies that form the scientific basis for using JSP191 in an MDS/AML setting.

Not only that, but this same technique was also used by Stanford’s Dr. Judy Shizuru in a clinical trial for children born with a form of severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare but fatal immune disorder in children. A clinical trial that CIRM funded.

It’s a reminder that therapies developed with one condition in mind can often be adapted to help treat other similar conditions. Jasper is doing just that. It hopes to start clinical trials this year using JSP191 for people getting blood stem cell transplants for severe autoimmune disease, sickle cell disease and Fanconi anemia.

Perseverance: from theory to therapy. Our story over the last year – and a half

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Some of the stars of our Annual Report

It’s been a long time coming. Eighteen months to be precise. Which is a peculiarly long time for an Annual Report. The world is certainly a very different place today than when we started, and yet our core mission hasn’t changed at all, except to spring into action to make our own contribution to fighting the coronavirus.

This latest CIRM Annual Reportcovers 2019 through June 30, 2020. Why? Well, as you probably know we are running out of money and could be funding our last new awards by the end of this year. So, we wanted to produce as complete a picture of our achievements as we could – keeping in mind that we might not be around to produce a report next year.

Dr. Catriona Jamieson, UC San Diego physician and researcher

It’s a pretty jam-packed report. It covers everything from the 14 new clinical trials we have funded this year, including three specifically focused on COVID-19. It looks at the extraordinary researchers that we fund and the progress they have made, and the billions of additional dollars our funding has helped leverage for California. But at the heart of it, and at the heart of everything we do, are the patients. They’re the reason we are here. They are the reason we do what we do.

Byron Jenkins, former Naval fighter pilot who battled back from his own fight with multiple myeloma

There are stories of people like Byron Jenkins who almost died from multiple myeloma but is now back leading a full, active life with his family thanks to a CIRM-funded therapy with Poseida. There is Jordan Janz, a young man who once depended on taking 56 pills a day to keep his rare disease, cystinosis, under control but is now hoping a stem cell therapy developed by Dr. Stephanie Cherqui and her team at UC San Diego will make that something of the past.

Jordan Janz and Dr. Stephanie Cherqui

These individuals are remarkable on so many levels, not the least because they were willing to be among the first people ever to try these therapies. They are pioneers in every sense of the word.

Sneha Santosh, former CIRM Bridges student and now a researcher with Novo Nordisk

There is a lot of information in the report, charting the work we have done over the last 18 months. But it’s also a celebration of everyone who made it possible, and our way of saying thank you to the people of California who gave us this incredible honor and opportunity to do this work.

We hope you enjoy it.

CIRM Board Approves Third Clinical Trial for COVID-19

/ Yimy Villa / Leave a comment
Dr. Xiaokui Zhang (left), Dr. Albert Wong (center), and Dr. Preet Chaudhary (right)

Today the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) awarded $750,000 to Dr. Xiaokui Zhang at Celularity to conduct a clinical trial for the treatment of COVID-19.  This brings the total number of CIRM clinical trials to 64, including three targeting the coronavirus.

This trial will use blood stem cells obtained from the placenta to generate natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell that is a vital part of the immune system, and administer them to patients with COVID-19.  NK cells play an important role in defense against cancer and in fighting off viral infections.  The goal is to administer these cells to locate the active sites of COVID-19 infection and destroy the virus-infected cells.  These NK cells have been used in two other clinical trials for acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma.

The Board also approved two additional awards for Discovery Stage Research (DISC2), which promote promising new technologies that could be translated to enable broad use and improve patient care.

One award for $100,000 was given to Dr. Albert Wong at Stanford.  Dr. Wong has recently received an award from CIRM to develop a vaccine that produces a CD8+ T cell response to boost the body’s immune response to remove COVID-19 infected cells.  The current award will enable him to expand on the initial approach to increase its potential to impact the Latinx and African American populations, two ethnicities that are disproportionately impacted by the virus in California.

The other award was for $249,996 and was given to Dr. Preet Chaudhary at the University of Southern California.  Dr. Chaudary will use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to generate natural killer cells (NK). These NK cells will express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), a synthetic receptor that will directly target the immune cells to kill cells infected with the virus.  The ultimate goal is for these iPSC-NK-CAR cells to be used as a treatment for COVID-19. 

“These programs address the role of the body’s immune T and NK cells in combatting viral infection and CIRM is fortunate enough to be able to assist these investigators in applying experience and knowledge gained elsewhere to find targeted treatments for COVID-19” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, the President & CEO of CIRM. “This type of critical thinking reflects the resourcefulness of researchers when evaluating their scientific tool kits.  Projects like these align with CIRM’s track record of supporting research at different stages and for different diseases than the original target.”

The CIRM Board voted to endorse a new initiative to refund the agency and provide it with $5.5 billion to continue its work. The ‘California Stem Cell Research, Treatments and Cures Initiative of 2020 will appear on the November ballot. 

The Board also approved a resolution honoring Ken Burtis, PhD., for his long service on the Board. Dr. Burtis was honored for his almost four decades of service at UC Davis as a student, professor and administrator and for his 11 years on the CIRM Board as both a member and alternate member. In the resolution marking his retirement the Board praised him, saying “his experience, commitment, knowledge, and leadership, contributed greatly to the momentum of discovery and the future therapies which will be the ultimate outcome of the dedicated work of the researchers receiving CIRM funding.”

Jonathan Thomas, the Chair of the Board, said “Ken has been invaluable and I’ve always found him to have tremendous insight. He has served as a great source of advice and inspiration to me and to the ICOC in dealing with all the topics we have had to face.” 

Lauren Miller Rogen thanked Dr. Burtis, saying “I sat next to you at my first meeting and was feeling so extraordinarily overwhelmed and you went out of your way to explain all these big science words to me. You were always a source of help and support, and you explained things to me in a way that I always appreciated with my normal brain.”

Dr. Burtis said it has been a real honor and privilege to be on the Board. “I’ve been amazed and astounded at the passion and dedication that the Board and CIRM staff have brought to this work. Every meeting over the years there has been a moment of drama and then resolution and this Board always manages to reach agreement and serve the people of California.”

Rare Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, and Heart Function: Breakthroughs for Three CIRM-Funded Studies

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This past week, there has been a lot of mention of CIRM funded studies that really highlight the importance of the work we support and the different disease areas we make an impact on. This includes important research related to rare disease, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and heart function. Below is a summary of the promising CIRM-funded studies released this past week for each one of these areas.

Rare Disease

Comparison of normal (left) and Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) brains (right) at age 2. 

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is a rare genetic condition affecting boys. It can be fatal before 10 years of age and symptoms of the disease include weakness and breathing difficulties. PMD is caused by a disruption in the formation of myelin, a type of insulation around nerve fibers that allows electrical signals in the brain to travel quickly. Without proper signaling, the brain has difficulty communicating with the rest of the body. Despite knowing what causes PMD, it has been difficult to understand why there is a disruption of myelin formation in the first place.

However, in a CIRM-funded study, Dr. David Rowitch, alongside a team of researchers at UCSF, Stanford, and the University of Cambridge, has been developing potential stem cell therapies to reverse or prevent myelin loss in PMD patients.

Two new studies, of which Dr. Rowitch is the primary author, published in Cell Stem Cell, and Stem Cell Reports, respectively report promising progress in using stem cells derived from patients to identify novel PMD drugs and in efforts to treat the disease by directly transplanting neural stem cells into patients’ brains. 

In a UCSF press release, Dr. Rowitch talks about the implications of his findings, stating that,

“Together these studies advance the field of stem cell medicine by showing how a drug therapy could benefit myelination and also that neural stem cell transplantation directly into the brains of boys with PMD is safe.”

Type 1 Diabetes

Viacyte, a company that is developing a treatment for Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), announced in a press release that the company presented preliminary data from a CIRM-funded clinical trial that shows promising results. T1D is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s own immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin, a hormone that enables our bodies to break down sugar in the blood. CIRM has been funding ViaCyte from it’s very earliest days, investing more than $72 million into the company.

The study uses pancreatic precursor cells, which are derived from stem cells, and implants them into patients in an encapsulation device. The preliminary data showed that the implanted cells, when effectively engrafted, are capable of producing circulating C-peptide, a biomarker for insulin, in patients with T1D. Optimization of the procedure needs to be explored further.

“This is encouraging news,” said Dr. Maria Millan, President and CEO of CIRM. “We are very aware of the major biologic and technical challenges of an implantable cell therapy for Type 1 Diabetes, so this early biologic signal in patients is an important step for the Viacyte program.”

Heart Function

Although various genome studies have uncovered over 500 genetic variants linked to heart function, such as irregular heart rhythms and heart rate, it has been unclear exactly how they influence heart function.

In a CIRM-funded study, Dr. Kelly Frazer and her team at UCSD studied this link further by deriving heart cells from induced pluripotent stem cells. These stem cells were in turn derived from skin samples of seven family members. After conducting extensive genome-wide analysis, the team discovered that many of these genetic variations influence heart function because they affect the binding of a protein called NKX2-5.

In a press release by UCSD, Dr. Frazer elaborated on the important role this protein plays by stating that,

“NKX2-5 binds to many different places in the genome near heart genes, so it makes sense that variation in the factor itself or the DNA to which it binds would affect that function. As a result, we are finding that multiple heart-related traits can share a common mechanism — in this case, differential binding of NKX2-5 due to DNA variants.”

The full results of this study were published in Nature Genetics.

Stanford study successful in transplant of mismatched stem cells, tissue in mice

/ Yimy Villa / 1 Comment
Dr. Irv Weissman at Stanford University

A transplant can be a lifesaving procedure for many people across the United States. In fact, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration, 36,528 transplants were performed in 2018. However, as of January 2019, the number of men, women, and children on the national transplant waiting list is over 113,000, with 20 people dying each day waiting for a transplant and a new person being added to the list every 10 minutes.

Before considering a transplant, there needs to be an immunological match between the donated tissue and/or blood stem cells and the recipient. To put it simply, a “match” indicates that the donor’s cells will not be marked by the recipient’s immune cells as foreign and begin to attack it, a process known as graft-versus-host disease. Unfortunately, these matches can be challenging to find, particularly for some ethnic minorities. Often times, immunosuppression drugs are also needed in order to prevent the foreign cells from being attacked by the body’s immune system. Additionally, chemotherapy and radiation are often needed as well.

Fortunately, a CIRM-funded study at Stanford has shown some promising results towards addressing the issue of matching donor cells and recipient. Dr. Irv Weissman and his colleagues at Stanford have found a way to prepare mice for a transplant of blood stem cells, even when donor and recipient are an immunological mismatch. Their method involved using a combination of six specific antibodies and does not require ongoing immunosuppression.

The combination of antibodies did this by eliminating several types of immune cells in the animals’ bone marrow, which allowed blood stem cells to engraft and begin producing blood and immune cells without the need for continued immunosuppression. The blood stem cells used were haploidentical, which, to put it simply, is what naturally occurs between parent and child, or between about half of all siblings. 

Additional experiments also showed that the mice treated with the six antibodies could also accept completely mismatched purified blood stem cells, such as those that might be obtained from an embryonic stem cell line. 

The results established in this mouse model could one day lay the foundation necessary to utilize this approach in humans after conducting clinical trials. The idea would be that a patient that needs a transplanted organ could first undergo a safe, gentle transplant with blood stem cells derived in the laboratory from embryonic stem cells. The same embryonic stem cells could also then be used to generate an organ that would be fully accepted by the recipient without requiring the need for long-term treatment with drugs to suppress the immune system. 

In a news release, Dr. Weissman is quoted as saying,

“With support by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, we’ve been able to make important advances in human embryonic stem cell research. In the past, these stem cell transplants have required a complete match to avoid rejection and reduce the chance of graft-versus-host disease. But in a family with four siblings the odds of having a sibling who matches the patient this closely are only one in four. Now we’ve shown in mice that a ‘half match,’ which occurs between parents and children or in two of every four siblings, works without the need for radiation, chemotherapy or ongoing immunosuppression. This may open up the possibility of transplant for nearly everyone who needs it. Additionally, the immune tolerance we’re able to induce should in the future allow the co-transplantation of [blood] stem cells and tissues, such as insulin-producing cells or even organs generated from the same embryonic stem cell line.”

The full results to this study were published in Cell Stem Cell.

CIRM-funded research is helping unlock the secrets behind “chemo brain”

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chemo brain

Every year millions of Americans undergo chemotherapy. The goal of the treatment is to destroy cancer, but along the way more than half of the people treated lose something else. They suffer from something called “chemo brain” which causes problems with thinking and memory. In some cases it can be temporary, lasting a few months. In others it can last years.

Now a CIRM-funded study by researchers at Stanford has found what may be behind chemo brain and identifying potential treatments.

In an article on the Stanford Medicine News Center, senior author Michelle Monje said:

“Cognitive dysfunction after cancer therapy is a real and recognized syndrome. In addition to existing symptomatic therapies — which many patients don’t know about — we are now homing in on potential interventions to promote normalization of the disorders induced by cancer drugs. There’s real hope that we can intervene, induce regeneration and prevent damage in the brain.”

The team first looked at the postmortem brains of children, some of whom had undergone chemotherapy and some who had not. The chemotherapy-treated brains had far fewer oligodendrocyte cells, a kind of cell important in protecting nerve cells in the brain.

Next the team injected methotrexate, a commonly used chemotherapy drug, into mice and then several weeks later compared the brains of those mice to untreated mice. They found that the brains of the treated mice had fewer oligodendrocytes and that the ones they had were in an immature state, suggested the chemo was blocking their development.

The inner changes were also reflected in behavior. The treated mice had slower movement, showed more anxiety, and impaired memory compared to untreated mice; symptoms that persisted for up to six months after the injections.

As if that wasn’t enough, they also found that the chemo affected other cells in the brain, creating a kind of cascade effect that seemed to amplify the impaired memory and other cognitive functions.

However, there is some encouraging news in the study, which is published in the journal Cell. The researchers gave the treated mice a drug to reverse some of the side effects of methotrexate, and that seemed to reduce some of the cognitive problems the mice were having.

Monje says that’s where her research is heading next.

“If we understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that contribute to cognitive dysfunction after cancer therapy, that will help us develop strategies for effective treatment. It’s an exciting moment.”

 

Stem Cell Agency Invests in New Immunotherapy Approach to HIV, Plus Promising Projects Targeting Blindness and Leukemia

/ Kevin McCormack / 8 Comments

HIV AIDS

While we have made great progress in developing therapies that control the AIDS virus, HIV/AIDS remains a chronic condition and HIV medicines themselves can give rise to a new set of medical issues. That’s why the Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded $3.8 million to a team from City of Hope to develop an HIV immunotherapy.

The City of Hope team, led by Xiuli Wang, is developing a chimeric antigen receptor T cell or CAR-T that will enable them to target and kill HIV Infection. These CAR-T cells are designed to respond to a vaccine to expand on demand to battle residual HIV as required.

Jeff Sheehy

CIRM Board member Jeff Sheehy

Jeff Sheehy, a CIRM Board member and patient advocate for HIV/AIDS, says there is a real need for a new approach.

“With 37 million people worldwide living with HIV, including one million Americans, a single treatment that cures is desperately needed.  An exciting feature of this approach is the way it is combined with the cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine. Making CAR T therapies safer and more efficient would not only help produce a new HIV treatment but would help with CAR T cancer therapies and could facilitate CAR T therapies for other diseases.”

This is a late stage pre-clinical program with a goal of developing the cell therapy and getting the data needed to apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to start a clinical trial.

The Board also approved three projects under its Translation Research Program, this is promising research that is building on basic scientific studies to hopefully create new therapies.

  • $5.068 million to University of California at Los Angeles’ Steven Schwartz to use a patient’s own adult cells to develop a treatment for diseases of the retina that can lead to blindness
  • $4.17 million to Karin Gaensler at the University of California at San Francisco to use a leukemia patient’s own cells to develop a vaccine that will stimulate their immune system to attack and destroy leukemia stem cells
  • Almost $4.24 million to Stanford’s Ted Leng to develop an off-the-shelf treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly.

The Board also approved funding for seven projects in the Discovery Quest Program. The Quest program promotes the discovery of promising new stem cell-based technologies that will be ready to move to the next level, the translational category, within two years, with an ultimate goal of improving patient care.

Application Title Institution CIRM Committed Funding
DISC2-10979 Universal Pluripotent Liver Failure Therapy (UPLiFT)

 

 Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles $1,297,512

 
DISC2-11105 Pluripotent stem cell-derived bladder epithelial progenitors for definitive cell replacement therapy of bladder cancer

 

 Stanford $1,415,016
DISC2-10973 Small Molecule Proteostasis Regulators to Treat Photoreceptor Diseases

 

 U.C. San Diego $1,160,648
DISC2-11070 Drug Development for Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Human Patient iPSCs

 

 Scripps $1,827,576
DISC2-11183 A screen for drugs to protect against chemotherapy-induced hearing loss, using sensory hair cells derived by direct lineage reprogramming from hiPSCs

 

 University of Southern California $833,971
DISC2-11199 Modulation of the Wnt pathway to restore inner ear function

 

 Stanford $1,394,870
DISC2-11109 Regenerative Thymic Tissues as Curative Cell Therapy for Patients with 22q11 Deletion Syndrome

 

 Stanford $1,415,016

Finally, the Board approved the Agency’s 2019 research budget. Given CIRM’s new partnership with the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (NHLBI) to accelerate promising therapies that could help people with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) the Agency is proposing to set aside $30 million in funding for this program.

barbara_lee_official_photo

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA 13th District)

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA 13th DIstrict)

“I am deeply grateful for organizations like CIRM and NHLBI that do vital work every day to help people struggling with Sickle Cell Disease,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA 13th District). “As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, I know well the importance of this work. This innovative partnership between CIRM and NHLBI is an encouraging sign of progress, and I applaud both organizations for their tireless work to cure Sickle Cell Disease.”

Under the agreement CIRM and the NHLBI will coordinate efforts to identify and co-fund promising therapies targeting SCD.  Programs that are ready to start an IND-enabling or clinical trial project for sickle cell can apply to CIRM for funding from both agencies. CIRM will share application information with the NHLBI and CIRM’s Grants Working Group (GWG) – an independent panel of experts which reviews the scientific merits of applications – will review the applications and make recommendations. The NHLBI will then quickly decide if it wants to partner with CIRM on co-funding the project and if the CIRM governing Board approves the project for funding, the two organizations will agree on a cost-sharing partnership for the clinical trial. CIRM will then set the milestones and manage the single CIRM award and all monitoring of the project.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to create a first-of-its-kind partnership with the NHLBI to accelerate the development of curative cell and gene treatments for patients suffering with Sickle Cell Disease” says Maria T. Millan, MD, President & CEO of CIRM. “This allows us to multiply the impact each dollar has to find relief for children and adults who battle with this life-threatening, disabling condition that results in a dramatically shortened lifespan.  We are pleased to be able to leverage CIRM’s acceleration model, expertise and infrastructure to partner with the NHLBI to find a cure for this condition that afflicts 100,000 Americans and millions around the globe.”

The budget for 2019 is:

Program type 2019
CLIN1 & 2

CLIN1& 2 Sickle Cell Disease

 $93 million

$30 million
TRANSLATIONAL $20 million
DISCOVER $0
EDUCATION $600K