StemCell Therapy

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Cell therapies for cardiovascular-related conditions is a closely watched, much studied, oft-discussed, and hotly contested segment of the cell therapy industry.


The data to-date are admittedly confusing.  From a clinical perspective, the studies for which we have data have been relatively small involving a mish-mash of indications, endpoints, eligibility criterion, methods and/or route of administration, as well as the time of administration relative to event or disease progression.


Further compounding any interpretation of the data, from a technical perspective, is the fact the products have been widely varied in terms of being autologous vs allogeneic, expanded and not, genetically modified and not, from a plethora of different sources, and utilizing a wide variety of cell types from skelatal myoblasts, cardiomyocytes, mesenchymal stromal cells, mononuclear cells, etc. 


All this makes it extremely difficult to draw any conclusions with respect to what's working and what's not.  We will not attempt to do so.


All we do below is attempt to give a snapshot of the industry-sponsored cell therapy trials currently ongoing for cardiovascular-related conditions.  So here it is:


Commercial:
Pharmicell's Heartcelligram is the only cell therapy to have received regulatory approval for commercial distribution for the treatment of a cardiac-related indication.  Heartcelligram is an autologous cell therapy approved in 2011 by the Korean Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) for the treatment of Acute Mycardial Infarction (AMI).  The price is reportedly $19,000 and the trial data behind the approval has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.


Phase III or II/III:
There are currently only 3 active and recruiting cardiac-related, industry-sponsored cell therapy trials.  Interestingly they all involve autologous products, two involve devices, two involve centralized manufacturing, two involve bone marrow cells as a source, two are only in European clinical sites, and two are targeting ischemic-related conditions.

• Baxter Therapeutics' Auto-CD34+ cells
• phase III trial actively recruiting
• Indication:  refractory angina and chronic myocardial ischemia
• Estimated enrollment:  444
• Estimated primary completion: June 2016 
• Cytori
• phase II/III trial actively recruiting
• Indication: ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction
• Estimated enrollment: 360
• Estimated primary completion: July 2014

• Miltenyi Biotec
• phase III trial actively recruiting
• Indication: myocardial ischemia or coronary artery disease
• Estimated enrollment: 142
• Estimated primary completion: July 2012

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In the last couple of weeks, two
well-respected Los Angeles Times columnists have visited what
might be called the "Son of CIRM" initiative on the
June ballot in California. It is aimed at fighting cancer by spending
$800 million or so annually on research with the money coming from a
$1-a-pack tax on cigarettes.

"Prop. 29 would increase cancer
research. Reduce smoking. Save lives. Hurt the lying tobacco
companies. Good plan."

"Proposition 71, you may recall, was sold to a gullible
public via candy-coated images of Christopher Reeve walking
again and Michael J. Fox cured of Parkinson's.
The implication was that these miracles would happen if voters
approved a $3-billion bond issue for stem cell research. Who could be
against that? 

 "As it turned out, the stem cell
measure created an unwieldy bureaucracy and etched conflicts of
interest into the state Constitution. By last count about 85% of the
$1.3 billion in grants handed out by the program, or some $1.1
billion, has gone to institutions with representatives on the stem
cell board. The program is virtually immune to oversight by the
Legislature or other elected officials. For these reasons and others,
it has grappled with only mixed success with changes in stem cell
science and politics that have called its original rationale into
question."

"Proposition
29, similarly, places most spending from the tobacco tax in the hands
of a nine-member board that must comprise one cardiovascular
physician affiliated with a California academic medical center; the
chancellors of UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and UC
Santa Cruz; two representatives of lobbying groups devoted to
tobacco-related illness (including one who has been treated for such
a disease); and three representatives from National Cancer
Institute-designated cancer centers in the state. There are
10 of the latter, including five UC campuses and the City of Hope.
Plainly, every member of the board will represent an employer that
thinks it's in line for some of the money."

"The anti-29 side is hitting this
hard: that the research money generated in California could be spent
out of state. And the politest thing possible to say about that claim
is that it's disingenuous. It's stretching something that's
conceivable into a virtual certainty."

"The anti-29 camp charges that
(the structure of the board) would allow a conflict of interest in
awarding contracts. But there are state laws that protect against
such conflicts.

"Anyway, the tobacco crowd can't have it
both ways: complaining that the money could be spent outside
California and also griping when the system is set up to practically
guarantee that it will be spent in California."

"Gov. Brown's latest budget
proposal calls for cuts of $1.2 billion in Medi-Cal and
$900 million in CalWorks (a relief program for families with
children) and steep cuts in financial aid for college students and in
court budgets. The University of California and Cal State systems are
becoming crippled by 20 years of cutbacks in state funding,
leading to soaring tuition charges. Tobacco-related illnesses create
some of the burden on Medi-Cal and other public healthcare programs,
yet a minimal portion of Proposition 29 revenue, if any, would go to
helping taxpayers carry that burden. 

"With the overall state budget gap
approaching $16 billion, how can anyone make the case for diverting a
huge chunk of $800 million a year in new revenue to long-term
scientific research, whether in California or not? Even if you
believe that case can be made, the proper place to make it is in the
Legislature, where all these demands on the budget can be weighed and
balanced against one another — not at the ballot box, where the
only choice is to spend it the way the initiative's drafters choose
or not to raise it at all."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

 "The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine
(CIRM) voted on 24 May to accept a new strategic planwhich
shrinks or eliminates support for basic research, facilities and
training, while funneling more of its funds toward clinical
development."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

"The sun now never sets on the
CIRM collaborative projects..."

 "The
Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has committed roughly
$850,000 in collaboration with a team at UCSF to study liver failure.
This is the stem cell agency’s first joint effort with scientists
in China, which is home to a fast-growing stem cell research
community."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The governing board of the $3 billion
California stem cell agency today rejected a proposal that would have
restricted transparency surrounding the financial interests of its
directors and top executives.

"I personally feel strongly that
because of CIRM's unique mission and the agency's incredibly
long-standing commitment to transparency, i believe that we should
continue to set an example by requiring the broadest disclosure for
members of the board and high level staff."

"When people have to fill a void
in information, they assume the worst."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The $3 billion California stem cell
today officially embarked on a course that will mean closer ties to
the biotech industry in hopes of fulfilling the campaign promises to voters to
turn stem cells into cures.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The $3 billion California stem cell
agency received a "very favorable" performance audit report
compared to other government agencies, CIRM directors were told
today.

 "Comparatively we
have done very well."

"CIRM board members and senior
management do not receive regularly updated, enterprise-level
performance information. The ability to evaluate performance against
strategic goals is critical to effective leadership and program
monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. CIRM does not currently have a
formal performance reporting program."

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The California Stem Cell Report will
provide live coverage of tomorrow's meeting of the governing board of
the $3 billion California stem cell agency. Directors are expected to
make major decisions about the agency's future direction, hear the results
of the first-ever performance audit and award about $95 million in
grants or loans.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

It was not exactly a case of "Back
to the Future," the hit movie starring Michael J. Fox,
but it did offer a reflection on the past.

Fox's 2004 Ad

 "It could save the life of someone you love."

“It’s not so much that [stem cell
research has] diminished in its prospects for breakthroughs as much
as it’s the other avenues of research have grown and multiplied and
become as much or more promising. So, an answer may come from stem
cell research but it’s more than likely to come from another area.”

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

The director of robotics and biosurgery
at UC Davis is appealing rejection of his application for a
$4.9 million grant from the California stem cell agency.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

In a move that was long overdue, the $3
billion California stem cell agency last week hired a director of
information technology to straighten out key problems ranging from
its grants management system to how it handles its website.

Bill Gimbel

 "Integration
of website content management has not been an integral part of the
GMS (grants management system) development process, which could
result in suboptimal operational efficiency and effectiveness.

"Grants management system
development is effectively managed at a tactical level, but it lacks
dedicated, strategic governance and oversight, which has resulted in
an elongated development process and requirements conflicts."

"The new grants management system
intellectual property module, currently under development, does not
include provisions to address commercialization activity."

"CIRM board members and senior
management do not receive regularly updated, enterprise-level
performance information. The ability to evaluate performance against
strategic goals is critical to effective leadership and program
monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. CIRM does not currently have a
formal performance reporting program."

"Data and document access are
inefficient as a result of CIRM operating without a document
management system.....In most cases, CIRM staff cannot access
information without human interface. Information is stored in
multiple locations, which are not linked or indexed."

 "CIRM’s
information system needs have been met by a variety of tools,
including in-house developed applications, off-the-shelf
applications, databases, and spreadsheets, most of which are not
integrated," the audit stated.

Source:
http://californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

ScienceDaily (May 24, 2012) A team of scientists at McMaster University has discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments.

"The unusual aspect of our finding is the way this human-ready drug actually kills cancer stem cells; by changing them into cells that are non-cancerous," said Mick Bhatia, the principal investigator for the study and scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, thioridazine appears to have no effect on normal stem cells.

The research, published May 24 in the science journal Cell, holds the promise of a new strategy and discovery pipeline for the development of anticancer drugs in the treatment of various cancers. The research team has identified another dozen drugs that have good potential for the same response.

For 15 years, some researchers have believed stem cells are the source of many cancers. In 1997, Canadian researchers first identified cancer stem cells in certain types of leukemia. Cancer stem cells have since been identified in blood, breast, brain, lung, gastrointestinal, prostate and ovarian cancer.

To test more than a dozen different compounds, McMaster researchers pioneered a fully automated robotic system to identify several drugs, including thioridazine.

"Now we can test thousands of compounds, eventually defining a candidate drug that has little effect on normal stem cells but kills the cells that start the tumor," said Bhatia.

The next step is to test thioridazine in clinical trials, focusing on patients with acute myeloid leukemia whose disease has relapsed after chemotherapy. Bhatia wants to find out if the drug can put their cancer into remission, and by targeting the root of the cancer (cancer stem cells) prevent the cancer from coming back. Researchers at McMaster have already designed how these trials would be done.

Bhatia's team found thioridazine works through the dopamine receptor on the surface of the cancer cells in both leukemia and breast cancer patients. This means it may be possible to use it as a biomarker that would allow early detection and treatment of breast cancer and early signs of leukemia progression, he said.

The research team's next step is to investigate the effectiveness of the drug in other types of cancer. In addition, the team will explore several drugs identified along with thioridazine. In the future, thousands of other compounds will be analyzed with McMaster robotic stem cell screening system in partnership with collaborations that include academic groups as well as industry.

Read the original here:
Drug destroys human cancer stem cells but not healthy ones

Vancouver, May 27: A team of Canadian scientists have discovered that thioridazine, a drug used to treat psychotic disorder, could successfully kill cancer stem cells in humans without the toxic side-effects on normal cells.

The research, published Thursday in the science journal CELL, may pave the way for the development of anticancer drugs for treatment of various cancers.

Conventional cancer treatments, like chemotherapy, work in a way that is toxic to cells, which may also lead to side-effects such as hair loss, nausea and anemia, according to the researchers from McMaster University.

Stem cells have long been believed to be the source of many cancers. In 1997, Canadian researchers first identified cancer stem cells in certain types of leukemia. Cancer stem cells have since been identified in blood, breast, brain, lung, gastrointestinal, prostate and ovarian cancer.

"The unusual aspect of our finding is the way it kills cancer stem cells, by differentiating them and changing them into cells that are non-cancerous," said Mick Bhatia, the principal investigator for the study and scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.

"We think this lack of toxicity is why it doesn't have effects on the normal cells, which would be beneficial to the patients," Bhatia said.

Bhatia said their next step was to test thioridazine in clinical trials, focusing on patients with acute myeloid leukemia whose disease has relapsed after chemotherapy. He wants to find out if the drug can put their cancer into remission, and prevent the cancer from coming back by targeting the root of the cancer (cancer stem cells).

Bhatia's team also found that thioridazine works through the dopamine receptor on the surface of the cancer cells in both leukemia and breast cancer patients.

The finding means it may be possible to use thioridazine as a biomarker that would allow early detection and treatment of breast cancer and early signs of leukemia progression, he said.

The research team would also look into the effectiveness of the drug in other types of cancer. Bhatia said they will collaborate with academic groups as well as industry to move forward.

Read the rest here:
Anti-psychotic drug kills cancer stem cells without side-effects: study

Burr, the drummer with Maiden from 1979 until 1982, has been in a wheelchair as a result of multiple sclerosis, which has been attacking his nervous system since before he was diagnosed in 2002.

MS reduces the ability of the brain and spinal cord to communicate with each other, resulting in a wide range of potentially severe symptoms. The cause is unknown and there is no cure; but in 2009 researchers made the first breakthrough in reversing symptoms through stem cell therapy.

Di'Anno tells Talking Metal Pirate Radio Burr's condition is "not very good at all." - He had a lot to say, read it here.

Classic Rock Magazine is an official news provider for antiMusic.com. Copyright Classic Rock Magazine- Excerpted here with permission.

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Di'Anno Wants Former Iron Maiden Bandmate To Undergo Stem Cell Therapy Recap

CARLY WEEKS From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published Saturday, May. 26, 2012 6:00AM EDT

Its a straightforward pitch to expecting parents: Pay a private clinic to store your babys stem-cell-rich umbilical-cord blood, and rest assured that he or she has protection for life. Multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, diabetes, traumatic brain injury, stroke, brain tumours and even Alzheimers disease are just a few of the ailments stem cells may be able to treat or cure in the future.

The optimism is contagious. Tens of thousands of Canadian families have made the decision to pay thousands of dollars to bank cord blood. But beyond the websites and brochures featuring photos of smiling babies and testimonials from families, a different picture is emerging of an industry that uses inflated arguments, aggressive marketing and misleading information to convince parents to buy in.

I dont know if the families are walking away with an entirely honest picture of what theyre buying, says John Doyle, former head of blood and marrow transplants at Torontos Hospital for Sick Children. I dont think that parents truthfully understand the limits.

Theres a long-standing history of overinflated promises by the cord-blood banks, agrees Donna Wall, director of the blood and marrow transplant program at CancerCare Manitoba. I could have retired many times over if I had gotten into the business. Its just not the right thing to do.

Full of promise

The stem cells found in umbilical-cord blood have the ability to turn into red or white blood cells or blood-clotting cells. For that reason, they offer promising treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell disease and other blood, bone, immune and metabolic disorders.

Adults also carry these stem cells, which is why Canadian Blood Services has a campaign to recruit people to join OneMatch, its network to connect stem-cell and bone-marrow donors to patients. But finding a suitable donor is much more difficult than simply matching blood types. Patient and donor cells must match 10 out of 10 human leukocyte antigens or proteins found on the surface of cells. Donor registries are limited and seldom diverse enough to serve patients of all ethnicities.

Hence the excitement over umbilical-cord-blood stem cells: Not only are they young and less likely to lead to complications, they need not match as precisely as adult cells.

This has just opened up so many more possibilities to patients in need, says Sue Smith, executive director for stem cells at Canadian Blood Services.

Read the original post:
Why banking on cord blood isn't necessarily a good idea

Written by Lois Alcosser Saturday, 26 May 2012 07:00

Though macular degeneration is rarely discussed as a health topic, it is a fearful possibility, especially as people age. That could account for the standing-room-only audience when Dr. Jeffrey Oberman, chief of opthalmology at Norwalk Hospital, spoke recently at the Greens at Cannondale. He explained in detail the causes, symptoms and latest advances in the treatment of macular degeneration.

The macula, he explained, is at the back wall of the eye. It is only 1% of the eyes physiology, but responsible for 90% of vision problems, and is the most common cause of visual loss in the developed world.

Painless and progressive, there are two forms of macular degeneration: dry and wet. The most frequent, the dry form, occurs when the light-sensitive cells in the macula slowly break down, blurring the central vision of the affected eye. Reading becomes difficult, so does recognizing faces. In the more severe, wet form, abnormal blood vessels form and leak into the macula area of the eye. Straight lines appear wavy, and there is a blind spot in the center of the eye.

Before there are any symptoms or vision loss, yellowish spots, called drusen, can be detected with a comprehensive eye exam, which is why it is so important to have regular eye examinations. The dry form can turn into the wet form, which is much more likely to affect vision, and is much more difficult to treat.

Risk factors for macular degeneration include age, smoking, obesity, family history and lifestyle. Dry degeneration can be treated with antioxidants, which are only helpful in the intermediate stage. A formulation called AREDS, consisting of Vitamins A, C, E, zinc and copper, is recommended. Something as simple as wearing sunglasses is helpful, to block out ultraviolet light.

The wet form of macular degeneration has been treated with lasers, photodynamic therapy and injections, but none is a cure. Injections, however, can potentially improve vision and stabilize the condition. Though these injections are into the eye, they are relatively painless. They are usually done monthly or bimonthly. Lucentis has stabilized degeneration 95% and improved acuity 34%. The problem is, it costs around $2,000 per injection. A much less expensive injection, Avastin, ($75 per dose) can slow the rate of progression and may cause some improvement.

There are many studies underway to find better, more affordable ways to improve treatment. The use of stem cells to create a healthy macula has proven successful in mice. But considering the fact there are 1.4 million fibers from the eye to the brain to create sight, this is clearly a complex and daunting challenge.

Dr. Oberman expressed great hope in further research. Meanwhile, be sure and get your eyes examined regularly.

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Macular degeneration: Causes, symptoms, cures

Five UC San Diego scientists have received almost $12 million combined from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to pay for stem cell-based research, the university announced today.

A team led by Lawrence Goldstein, of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program, was given $1.8 million to continue looking for new methods to find and test possible medications for Alzheimer's disease, according to UCSD. They use reprogrammed stem cells in their work.

Dr. Mark Tuszynski, professor of neurosciences and director of the Center for Neural Repair, received $4.6 million to develop more potent stem cell-based treatments for spinal cord injuries.

Gene Yeo, assistant professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, was awarded $1.6 million to continue research into treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His research hopes to take advantage of recent discoveries about ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, which center on mutations in RNA-binding proteins that cause dysfunction and death in neurons.

Dr. Eric David Adler, an associate clinical professor of medicine and cardiologist, was granted $1.7 million to screen potential drugs for Danon disease, a type of inherited heart failure that frequently kills patients by their 20s.

Yang Xu, a professor in the Division of Biological Sciences, was given $1.8 million to research the use of human embryonic stem cells to produce a renewable source of heart muscle cells that replace cells damaged or destroyed by disease, while overcoming biological resistance to new cells.

"With these new awards, the (institute) now has 52 projects in 33 diseases at varying stages of working toward clinical trials,'' said Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the CIRM governing board. "Californians should take pride in being at the center of this worldwide research leading toward new cures.''

CIRM was established in November 2004 with voter passage of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. UC San Diego has received $112 million since CIRM began providing grants six years ago.

Read the original post:
UC San Diego Scientists Net $12 Million For Stem Cell Research

Public release date: 25-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Scott LaFee slafee@ucsd.edu 619-543-6163 University of California - San Diego

Five scientists from the University of California, San Diego and its School of Medicine have been awarded almost $12 million in new grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to conduct stem cell-based research into regenerating spinal cord injuries, repairing gene mutations that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and finding new drugs to treat heart failure and Alzheimer's disease.

The awards mark the third round of funding in CIRM's Early Translational Awards program, which supports projects that are in the initial stages of identifying drugs or cell types that could become disease therapies. More than $69 million in awards were announced yesterday, including funding for first-ever collaboratively funded research projects with China and the federal government of Australia.

"With these new awards, the agency now has 52 projects in 33 diseases at varying stages of working toward clinical trials," said Jonathan Thomas, JD, PhD and CIRM governing board chair. "Californians should take pride in being at the center of this worldwide research leading toward new cures. These projects represent the best of California stem cell science and the best international experts who, together, will bring new therapies for patients."

The five new UC San Diego awards are:

With a $1.8 million award, Lawrence Goldstein, PhD, professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program, and colleagues will continue their work developing new methods to find and test drug candidates for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Currently, there is no effective treatment for AD. The researchers screen novel candidates using purified human brain cells made from human reprogrammed stem cells. Already, they have discovered that these human brain cells exhibit a unique biochemical behavior that indicates early development of AD in a dish.

Mark H. Tuszynski, MD, PhD, professor of neurosciences and director of the Center for Neural Repair at UC San Diego, and colleagues seek to develop more potent stem cell-based treatments for spinal cord injuries. By combining grafts of neural stem cells with scaffolds placed at injury sites, the researchers have reported substantial progress in restoring functional improvement in impaired animal models. The new $4.6 million grant will fund work to identify the optimal human neural stem cells for preclinical development and, in an unprecedented step, test this treatment in appropriate preclinical models of spinal cord injury, providing the strongest validation for human translation.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) is a progressive neurological condition that is currently incurable. Gene Yeo, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and colleagues will use a $1.6 million grant to exploit recent discoveries that specific mutations in RNA-binding proteins cause neuronal dysfunction and death. They will use neurons generated from patient cells containing the mutations to identify the unique RNA "signature" of these doomed neurons and screen for drug-like compounds that bypass the mutations to correct the RNA signature to obtain healthy neurons.

Eric David Adler, MD, an associate clinical professor of medicine and cardiologist, studies heart failure, including the use of stem cells to treat it. His $1.7 million award will fund research into Danon disease, a type of inherited heart failure that frequently kills patients by their 20s. Adler and colleagues will turn stem cells created from skin cells of patients with Danon disease into heart cells, then screen hundreds of thousands of drug candidates for beneficial effects. The most promising drugs will subsequently be tested on mice with a genetic defect similar to Danon disease, with the ultimate goal of identifying a suitable candidate for human clinical trials. The research may have broader applications for other conditions with similar pathogenesis, such as cancer and Parkinson's disease.

Continued here:
UC San Diego researchers receive new CIRM funding

Five UC San Diego scientists have received almost $12 million combined from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to pay for stem cell-based research, the university announced today.

A team led by Lawrence Goldstein, of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program, was given $1.8 million to continue looking for new methods to find and test possible medications for Alzheimer's disease, according to UCSD. They use reprogrammed stem cells in their work.

Dr. Mark Tuszynski, professor of neurosciences and director of the Center for Neural Repair, received $4.6 million to develop more potent stem cell-based treatments for spinal cord injuries.

Gene Yeo, assistant professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, was awarded $1.6 million to continue research into treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His research hopes to take advantage of recent discoveries about ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, which center on mutations in RNA-binding proteins that cause dysfunction and death in neurons.

Dr. Eric David Adler, an associate clinical professor of medicine and cardiologist, was granted $1.7 million to screen potential drugs for Danon disease, a type of inherited heart failure that frequently kills patients by their 20s.

Yang Xu, a professor in the Division of Biological Sciences, was given $1.8 million to research the use of human embryonic stem cells to produce a renewable source of heart muscle cells that replace cells damaged or destroyed by disease, while overcoming biological resistance to new cells.

"With these new awards, the (institute) now has 52 projects in 33 diseases at varying stages of working toward clinical trials,'' said Jonathan Thomas, chairman of the CIRM governing board. "Californians should take pride in being at the center of this worldwide research leading toward new cures.''

CIRM was established in November 2004 with voter passage of the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act. UC San Diego has received $112 million since CIRM began providing grants six years ago.

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UC San Diego Scientists Net $12 Million For Stem Cell Research