UC awarded $4M in grants to create stem cell bank
April 2, 2013 •
University of California scientists received five grants totaling more than $4 million in the latest round of funding from the state’s stem cell agency.
The grants are part of the effort by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to set up a stem cell bank.
Applicants will work together to collect tissue samples from people who have different diseases, turn those samples into high quality stem cell lines – the kind known as induced pluripotent stem cells – and create a facility where those lines can be stored and distributed to researchers who need them, according to CIRM.
The CIRM board approved nine grant proposals to create and store 9,000 cell lines from 3,000 individuals representing 11 diseases at a total cost of $32.3 million. UC grant recipients include:
UCLA: $934,515: Brigitte Gomperts
UC San Diego: $2.6 million: Douglas Galasko, Joseph Gleeson, Kang Zhang
UC San Francisco: $865,370: Jacquelyn Maher
Overall, CIRM’s governing board has awarded about $1.8 billion in stem cell grants, with half of the total going to the University of California or UC-affiliated institutions.
