UCLA's newest center
FOR discovery
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(Left) Reed Hutchinson UCLA
Photographic Services
(Right) Courtesy of the Jonsson Cancer Center
Owen Witte, professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular
genetics, serves as director of the new institute for stem
cell
research. Judith Gasson, head of the Jonsson Cancer Center,
is
co-director. |
Unlocking secrets of stem cells
BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
Building on the faculty’s longstanding success at working
collaboratively across disciplines on major science initiatives,
UCLA is launching a $20-million stem cell institute that may someday
lead the way to new therapies for treating cancer, HIV and neurological
diseases.
The new Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine will open
this new frontier to faculty across campus, said its director, Owen
Witte, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics
who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The institute’s broad agenda will extend to human embryonic
stem cells as well as adult stem cells, both in humans and in animal
model systems. Biologists in the UCLA College are currently working
on model systems in flies, mice, worms and zebrafish. The institute
will also include engineering researchers who want to devise new
biological materials to support the growth of stem cells. Faculty
in law, medical ethics, public health and other fields will also
be involved.
“As one of the world’s leading research universities,
UCLA has long been engaged in adult and embryonic stem cell research,
with activities in areas ranging from the AIDS Institute to the
Brain Research Institute to the UCLA College,” said Chancellor
Albert Carnesale. “The new Institute for Stem Cell Biology
and Medicine will enable us to continue fostering such interdisciplinary
collaborations and to build upon the existing body of knowledge
for the benefit of people worldwide.”
Witte, whose pioneering research led to the development of Gleevec,
a targeted leukemia therapy, said a tremendous amount of knowledge
would be gained from the study of stem cells, affecting just about
every discipline in biomedicine and opening up almost limitless
therapeutic possibilities. “There’s really no disease
or pathological process that won’t be involved,” he
said, “but we’ll concentrate our efforts on this campus
in areas where we’re already very strong — cancer, neurological
disorders and HIV/AIDS.”
The $20 million is being funded over five years by the Chancellor’s
Office, the Geffen School of Medicine, the Jonsson Cancer Center
and the UCLA College. “Everyone has teamed up to make this
happen,” Witte said. “There’s a real sense of
energy and excitement among faculty.” The institute will have
at least six new faculty positions, with an additional six to eight
faculty to be hired by departments. Research teams will compete
for funding authorized by voters through Proposition 71, which sets
aside $3 billion for stem cell research.
UCLA’s tradition of successful faculty collaboration gives
the new institute a competitive edge that will help make it a leading
center for this emerging field, said Witte. The campus will have
another major advantage: a human embryonic stem cell laboratory,
a research environment that will be strictly controlled and constantly
monitored to prevent any possible contamination. If what is produced
there is ever going to be used therapeutically, the lab needs to
adhere to a set of very strict FDA regulations and quality standards
called the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). GMP conditions are
currently required by the FDA when gene therapy or gene medicine
is used in clinical trials.
UCLA is the only public university in California with a GMP facility,
which will be expanded to accommodate the new stem cell lab, said
Judith Gasson, co-director of the institute and head of the Jonsson
Cancer Center. The facility has been used for the past five years
by the Human Gene Medicine Program, directed by Jonsson Cancer Center
Professor James Economou. “When we have an approved protocol
to treat patients using stem cells, we will have all the records,
going back to the very beginning, to show how these cells were kept
and how they were monitored,” Gasson said.
It’s too early — not to mention unwise — to predict
when stem cell research will turn into therapies for patients, said
Witte and Gasson. In the foreseeable future, a great deal of interdisciplinary
work has to be done, Witte said.
“There are a lot of impediments — financial, bureaucratic
and others — that would dissuade scientists from doing this
kind of work,” he added. “If we can help them get past
those barriers, more faculty will want to get involved.”
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