We at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. We get to work with some extraordinary colleagues, we get to know some remarkable patient advocates who are pioneers in volunteering for stem cell and gene therapies, and we have a front row seat in a movement that is changing the face of medicine.
We also get to work with some brilliant scientists and help support their research. As if we needed any reminders of how important that funding is, we thought we would share this video with you. It’s from the talented post docs and researchers at the University of California San Diego. It’s a delightful parody of the Cyndi Lauper classic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Only in this case it’s “Nerds Just Wanna Have Funds.”
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:
Application
Program Title
Institution/Principal Investigator
Amount awarded
INFR4-13579
The Stanford Alpha Stem Cell Clinic
Stanford University – Matthew Porteus
$7,997,246
INFR4-13581
UCSF Alpha Stem Cell Clinic
U.C. San Francisco – Mark Walters
$7,994,347
INFR4-13586
A 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
INFR4-13587
The 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
INFR4-13596
Alpha Stem Cell Clinic for Northern and Central California
U.C. Davis – Mehrdad Abedi
$7,999,997
INFR4-13685
Expansion of the Alpha Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Clinic at UCLA
U.C. Los Angeles – Noah Federman
$8,000,000
INFR4-13878
Alpha Clinic Network Expansion for Cell and Gene Therapies
University of Southern California – Thomas Buchanan
$7,999,983
INFR4-13952
A 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
INFR4-13597
UC 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.
Our 2021-22 Annual Report is now online. It’s filled with information about the work we have done over the last year (we are on a fiscal calendar year from July 1 – June 30), the people who have helped us do that work, and some of the people who have benefited from that work. One of those is Dr. Alysson Muotri, a professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Cellular & Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Alysson Muotri, in his lab at UCSD
For Dr. Alysson Muotri, trying to unlock the secrets of the brain isn’t just a matter of scientific curiosity, it’s personal. He has a son with autism and Dr. Muotri is looking for ways to help him, and millions of others like him around the world.
He created the Tooth Fairy project where parents donated more than 3,000 baby teeth from children with autism and children who are developing normally. Dr. Muotri then turned cells from those teeth into neurons, the kind of brain cell affected by autism. He is using those cells to try and identify how the brain of a child with autism differs from a child who is developing normally.
“We’ve been using cells from this population to see what are the alterations (in the gene) and if we can revert them back to a normal state. If you know the gene that is affected, and autism has a strong genetic component, by genome sequencing you can actually find what are the genes that are affected and in some cases there are good candidates for gene therapy. So, you just put the gene back. And we can see that in the lab where we are correcting the gene that is mutated, the networks start to function in a way that is more neurotypical or normal. We see that as highly promising, there’s a huge potential here to help those individuals.”
He is also creating brain organoids, three-dimensional structures created from stem cells that mimic some of the actions and activities of the brain. Because these are made from human cells, not mice or other animals, they may be better at indicating if new therapies have any potential risks for people.
“We can test drugs in the brain organoids of the person and see if it works, see if there’s any toxicity before you actually give the drug to a person, and it will save us time and money and will increase our knowledge about the human brain.”
He says he still gets excited seeing how these cells work. “It’s amazing, it’s a miracle. Every time I see it, it’s like seeing dolphins in the sea because it’s so beautiful.”
Dr. Muotri is also a big proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion in scientific research. He says in the past it was very much a top-down model with scientists deciding what was important. He says we need to change that and give patients and communities a bigger role in shaping the direction of research.
“I think this is something we scientists have to learn, how to incorporate patients in our research. These communities are the ones we are studying, and we need to know what they want and not assume that what we want is what they want. They should be consulted on our grants, and they should participate in the design of our experiments. That is the future.”
Hematologic malignancies are cancers that affect the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes and include different forms of leukemia and lymphoma. Current treatments can be effective, but in those patients that do not respond, there are few treatment options. Today, the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) approved investing $4.1 million in a therapy aimed at helping patients who have failed standard therapy.
Dr. Ezra Cohen, at the University of California San Diego, and Oncternal Therapeutics are targeting a protein called ROR1 that is found in B cell malignancies, such as leukemias and lymphomas, and solid tumors such as breast, lung and colon. They are using a molecule called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that can enable a patient’s own T cells, an important part of the immune system, to target and kill their cancer cells. These cells are derived from a related approach with an antibody therapy that targets ROR1-binding medication called Cirmtuzumab, also created with CIRM support. This CAR-T product is designed to recognize and kill cancer stem cells that express ROR1.
This is a late-stage preclinical project so the goal is to show they can produce enough high-quality cells to treat patients, as well as complete other regulatory measures needed for them to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to test the therapy in a clinical trial in people.
If given the go-ahead by the FDA the therapy will target patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
“CAR-T cell therapies represent a transformational advance in the treatment of hematologic malignancies,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO. “This approach addresses the need to develop new therapies for patients whose cancers are resistant to standard chemotherapies, who have few therapeutic options and a very poor chance or recovery.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out scientists scrambled to find existing medications that might help counter the life-threatening elements of the virus. One of the first medications that showed real promise was remdesivir. It’s an anti-viral drug that was originally developed to target novel, emerging viruses, viruses like COVID19. It was approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2020.
Remdesivir showed real benefits for some patients, reducing recovery time for those in the hospital, but it also had problems. It had to be delivered intravenously, meaning it could only be used in a hospital setting. And it was toxic if given in too high a dose.
In a new study – partially funded by CIRM (DISC2 COVID19-12022 $228,229) – researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) found that by modifying some aspects of remdesivir they were able to make it easier to take and less toxic.
In a news release about the work Dr. Robert Schooley, a first author on the study, says we still need medications like this.
“Although vaccine development has had a major impact on the epidemic, COVID-19 has continued to spread and cause disease — especially among the unvaccinated. With the evolution of more transmissible viral variants, breakthrough cases of COVID are being seen, some of which can be severe in those with underlying conditions. The need for effective, well-tolerated antiviral drugs that can be given to patents at high risk for severe disease at early stages of the illness remains high.”
To be effective remdesivir must be activated by several enzymes in the body. It’s a complex process and explains why the drug is beneficial for some areas, such as the lung, but can be toxic to other areas, such as the liver. So, the researchers set out to overcome those problems.
The team created what are called lipid prodrugs, these are compounds that do not dissolve in water and are used to improve how a drug interacts with cells or other elements; they are often used to reduce the bad side effects of a medication. By inserting a modified form of remdesivir into this lipid prodrug, and then attaching it to an enzyme called a lipid-phosphate (which acts as a delivery system, bringing along the remdesivir prodrug combo), they were able to create an oral form of remdesivir.
Dr. Aaron Carlin, a co-first author of the study, says they were trying to create a hybrid version of the medication that would work equally well regardless of the tissue it interacted with.
“The metabolism of remdesivir is complex, which may lead to variable antiviral activity in different cell types. In contrast, these lipid-modified compounds are designed to be activated in a simple uniform manner leading to consistent antiviral activity across many cell types.”
When they tested the lipid prodrugs in animal models and human cells they found they were effective against COVID-19 in different cell types, including the liver. They are now working on further developing and testing the lipid prodrug to make sure it’s safe for people and that it can live up to their hopes of reducing the severity of COVID-19 infections and speed up recovery.
A team of UC San Diego researchers recently published novel preeclampsia models to aid in understanding this pregnancy complication that occurs in one of 25 U.S. pregnancies. Researchers include (left to right): Ojeni Touma, Mariko Horii, Robert Morey and Tony Bui. Credit: UC San Diego
Pregnant women often tread uncertain waters in regards to their health and well-being as well as that of their babies. Many conditions can arise and one of these is preeclampsia, a type of pregnancy complication that occurs in approximately one in 25 pregnancies in the United States according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). It occurs when expecting mothers develop high blood pressure, typically after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and that in turn reduces the blood supply to the baby. This can lead to serious, even fatal, complications for both the mother and baby.
A CIRM supported study using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a kind of stem cell that can turn into virtually any cell type, was able to create a “disease in a dish” model in order to better understand preeclampsia.
Credit: UC San Diego
For this study, Mariko Horii, M.D., and her team of researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine obtained cells from the placenta of babies born under preeclampsia conditions. These cells were then “reprogrammed” into a stem cell-like state, otherwise known as iPSCs. The iPSCs were then turned into cells resembling placental cells in early pregnancy. This enabled the team to create the preeclampsia “disease in the dish” model. Using this model, they were then able to study the processes that cause, result from, or are otherwise associated with preeclampsia.
The findings revealed that cellular defects observed are related to an abnormal response in the environment in the womb. Specifically, they found that preeclampsia was associated with a low-oxygen environment in the uterus. The researchers used a computer modeling system at UC San Diego known as Comet to detail the differences between normal and preeclampsia placental tissue.
Horii and her team hope that these findings not only shed more light on the environment in the womb observed in preeclampsia, but also provided insight for future development of diagnostic tools and identification of potential medications. Furthermore, they hope that their iPSC disease model can be used to study other placenta-associated pregnancy disorders such as fetal growth restriction, miscarriage, and preterm birth.
The team’s next steps are to develop a 3D model to better study the relationship between environment and development of placental disease.
In a news release from UC San Diego, Horri elaborates more on these future goals.
“Currently, model systems are in two-dimensional cultures with single-cell types, which are hard to study as the placenta consists of maternal and fetal cells with multiple cell types, such as placental cells (fetal origin), maternal immune cells and maternal endometrial cells. Combining these cell types together into a three-dimensional structure will lead to a better understanding of the more complex interactions and cell-to-cell signaling, which can then be applied to the disease setting to further understand pathophysiology.”
The full study was published in Scientific Reports.
Image Description: Jordan Janz (left) and Dr. Stephanie Cherqui (right)
According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD), a disease is consider rare if it affects fewer than 200,000 people. If you combine the over 7,000 known rare diseases, about 30 million people in the U.S. are affected by one of these conditions. A majority of these conditions have no cure or have very few treatment options, but a CIRM funded trial (approximately $12 million) for a rare pediatric disease has showed promising results in one patient using a gene therapy approach. The hope for the field as a whole is that this proof of concept might pave the way to use gene therapy to treat other diseases.
Cystinosis is a rare disease that primarily affects children and young adults, and leads to premature death, usually in early adulthood. Patients inherit defective copies of a gene that results in abnormal accumulation of cystine (hence the name cystinosis) in all cells of the body. This buildup of cystine can lead to multi-organ failure, with some of earliest and most pronounced effects on the kidneys, eyes, thyroid, muscle, and pancreas. Many patients suffer end-stage kidney failure and severe vision defects in childhood, and as they get older, they are at increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, bone defects, and neuromuscular problems. There is currently a drug treatment for cystinosis, but it only delays the progression of the disease, has severe side effects, and is expensive.
Dr. Stephane Cherqui at UC San Diego (UCSD), in partnership with AVROBIO, is conducting a clinical trial that uses a gene therapy approach to modify a patient’s own blood stem cells with a functional version of the defective gene. The corrected stem cells are then reintroduced into the patient with the hope that they will give rise to blood cells that will reduce cystine buildup in the body.
22 year old Jordan Janz was born with cystinosis and was taking anywhere from 40 to 60 pills a day as part of his treatment. Unfortunately the medication affected his body odor, leaving him smelling like rotten eggs or stinky cheese. In 2019, Jordan was the first of three patients to participate in Dr. Cherqui’s trial and the results have been remarkable. Tests have shown that the cystine in his eyes, skin and muscle have greatly decreased. Instead of the 40-60 pills a day, he just takes vitamins and specific nutrients his body needs. What’s more is that he no longer has a problem with body odor caused by the pills he once had to take. Although it will take much more time know if Jordan was cured of the disease, he says that he feels “essentially cured”.
“I have more of a life now. I’m going to school. I’m hoping to open up my own business one day.”
You can learn more about Jordan by watching the video below:
Although gene therapy approaches still need to be closely studied, they have enormous potential for treating patients. CIRM has funded other clinical trials that use gene therapy approaches for different genetic diseases including X-SCID, ADA-SCID, ART-SCID, X-CGD, and sickle cell disease.
Astrocytes, which provide structural support and protection for neurons and also supply them with nutrients and oxygen.
Bipolar disorder (BPD) is a mental disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. In the United States, recent research has shown that 1.6% of the population has BPD, which is roughly over 4 million people. Those with BPD are more likely to have conditions associated with chronic inflammation such as hypertension and diabetes. It is because of this that scientists have been studying the connection between inflammation and BPD for quite some time.
In a new study, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, UC San Diego, and the Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris have found evidence that astrocytes, a certain type of brain cell, can trigger inflammation more easily in those that have BPD. What’s more, these astrocytes can be linked to decreased brain activity that could be harmful to mental health.
Astrocytes are star shaped (as the word “astro” might suggest) and help support neurons, the cells that relay information around the brain. One of these supporting roles includes helping trigger inflammation in the brain and the surrounding nervous system to help with injury or infection. The researchers believe that this process can go wrong in people with BPD and that astrocytes can play a role in this dysfunctional inflammation.
For this study, the team used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a kind of stem cell that can turn into virtually any type of cell, that they created from patients with BPD and patients without BPD. They converted these iPSCs into astrocytes and compared those that came from BPD patients to those that did not. What they found is that the astrocytes from patients with BPD were noticeably different. The BPD astrocytes had a higher expression of a protein that triggers an inflammatory response when compared to the non-BPD astrocytes. When they exposed neurons to the BPD astrocytes, the team saw decreased levels of neural activity compared to the non-BPD astrocytes. Lastly, when the researchers blocked the inflammatory protein, the neurons were less affected by the BPD astrocytes.
“Our study suggests that normal function of astrocytes is affected in bipolar disorder patients’ brains, contributing to neuroinflammation,” said Dr. Renata Santos, a researcher at the Salk Institute as well as the Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris, in a news release.
The team hopes that their findings can not only provide insight into BPD, but to other mental illnesses linked to inflammation such as schizophrenia. The ultimate goal is to help advance research into astrocytes and inflammation in order to develop treatments that might reverse the harmful bodily changes seen in those with BPD and other mental disorders.
The full study was published in Stem Cell Reports.
UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers found approximately 10-fold higher SARS-CoV-2 infection (green) in lung organoids (left), compared to brain organoids (right). Image courtesy of UCSD Health
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic early last year, scientists all over the world are still trying to better understand SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Although the more commonly known symptoms involve respiratory issues, there have been other long term problems observed in recovered patients. These consist of heart issues, fatigue, and neurological issues such as loss of taste and smell and “brain fog”.
To better understand this, Dr. Tariq Rana and a team of researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine are using stem cells to create lung and brain organoids to better understand how the virus interacts with the various organ systems and to better develop therapies that block infection. Organoids are 3D models made of cells that can be used to analyze certain features of the human organ being modeled. Although they are far from perfect replicas, they can be used to study physical structure and other characteristics.
The team’s lung and brain organoids produced molecules ACE2 and TMPRSS2, which sit like doorknobs on the outer surfaces of cells. SARS-CoV-2 is able to use these doorknobs to enter cells and establish infection.
Dr. Rana and his team then developed a pseudovirus, a noninfectious version of SARS-CoV-2, and attached a fluorescent label, allowing them to measure how effectively the virus binds in human lung and brain organoids as well as to evaluate the cells’ response. The team was surprised to see an approximately 10-fold higher SARS-CoV-2 infection in lung organoids compared to brain organoids. Additionally, treatment with TMPRSS2 inhibitors reduced infection levels in both organoids.
Besides differences in infection levels, the lung and brain organoids also differed in their responses to the virus. Infected lung organoids pumped out molecules intended to summon help from the immune system while infected brain organoids upped their production of molecules that plays a fundamental role in pathogen recognition and activation of the body’s own immune defenses.
In a news release from UC San Diego Health, Dr. Rana elaborates on the results of his study.
“We’re finding that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t infect the entire body in the same way. In different cell types, the virus triggers the expression of different genes, and we see different outcomes.”
The next steps for Rana and his team is to develop SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors and test out how well they work in organoid models derived from people of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds that represent California’s diverse population. To carry out this research, CIRM awarded Dr. Rana a grant of $250,000, which is part of the $5 million in emergency funding for COVID-19 research that CIRM authorized at the beginning of the pandemic.
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 