Caltech Stem Cell Biology Training Program Awarded $2.3 Million

PASADENA, Calif. - At a historic meeting today in Sacramento, a three-year, $2.3 million grant was earmarked for the creation of the Caltech Stem-Cell Training Program at the California Institute of Technology. The grant is part of the first round of funding resulting from the passage by California voters of Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, in November 2004. The controversial bond measure provides $3 billion over the next ten years to support human embryonic stem-cell research at California universities and research institutions.

The new program, an independently funded collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, will provide cross-disciplinary education to postdoctoral scholars on the potential medical uses for stem-cell research, as well as training in the social, ethical, and legal issues surrounding such research. It will be directed by Paul H. Patterson, Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences, who currently studies stem cells in the adult brains of mice and their potential usefulness in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

The program will support ten postdoctoral students, drawn from different disciplines on campus, for three years.

"This will allow us to bring people into stem-cell research that might otherwise have gone in different directions, providing new expertise and research ideas to the field," Patterson says. "A physicist will look at a problem in a way that a biologist might not have."

A key feature of the program will be newly developed courses in bioethics, and a unique tri-institutional stem-cell biology lecture course, taught in conjunction with the USC Keck School of Medicine and Children's Hospital, that will train students in cutting-edge gene-transfer technology applications in the clinic, medical applications, and current stem-cell research.

The collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine and Children's Hospital "will bring a new medical, preclinical, and clinical outlook to Caltech's work," says Patterson. The university is a world leader in basic stem-cell research. Recently, Caltech researchers uncovered crucial mechanisms regulating the fate of stem cells, and provided unprecedented views of the movement of stem cells through living embryos. Other work has demonstrated the ability to manipulate the genes of stem cells.

The allocation of funds was recommended at a meeting of the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). In subsequent awards, CIRM will provide the funds to construct new research facilities and to support individual research programs.

"This is the first fruit of Proposition 71, an initiative that was overwhelmingly voted in by the people of California to support stem-cell research. Caltech will luckily be part of that effort," said Caltech president and Nobel laureate David Baltimore. "This training grant will allow us to use our expertise to develop a pool of new talent to conduct stem-cell research," he adds. Baltimore is on the 29-member CIRM oversight committee. Committee members do not vote on applications in which they have a conflict of interest.

"This is just the beginning," Patterson says. "It's part of a comprehensive approach that is unique to California, and we hope to participate in all aspects of this at Caltech."

Caltech Media Relations contacts: Kathy Svitil (626) 395-8022 ksvitil@caltech.edu