$12,500 MTI Stem Cell Grant Awarded to JAX Researchers
JAX® NOTES Issue 514, Summer 2009
The Maine Technology Institute (MTI) has awarded The Jackson Laboratory a $12,500 seed grant to investigate new stem cell technologies that could advance the future of personalized medicine.
Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the capacity to grow into any kind of cell in the body — heart, lung, pancreas, liver, etc. and may be able to repair or even reconstruct organs damaged by diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. Because ES cells are present only in very early embryonic stages, a patient may reject tissues produced from any source other than his or her own ES cells. The MTI grant will enable JAX researchers to explore technologies, which, through a combination of reprogramming factors, would convert adult body cells into functional embryonic-like stem cells — what scientists are calling "induced pluripotent stem" (iPS) cells. This would provide viable stem cells from the adult hosts that previously were only available at the embryonic stage.
Dr. Anne Greenlee, manager of the JAX® Stem Cell & Primary Cell Group and the project's principal investigator, explains that because every mouse in a given strain is genetically identical, ES cells from one mouse and iPS cells from another one of the same strain can be compared as if they came from the same mouse. Says Greenlee, "This will be an important step in establishing whether iPS cells could someday be harvested from an individual patient and used as a kind of 'replacement parts kit' for that patient's own diseased tissues. Our immediate goal will be to establish and standardize the quality of these JAX® Mice stem cell lines, so they can be distributed to researchers around the world who are working to develop new treatments for human diseases."
The MTI funding requires a $14,790 match, which JAX is providing in the form of staff, services, and equipment. Dr. Greenlee will be joined on the project by two other Jackson Laboratory staff: Michael Wiles, Ph.D., Senior Director of Technology Evaluation and Development, and Sadie Murdie, biomedical technologist. The project will also provide a 12-week, National Institutes of Health-funded training opportunity for University of Wisconsin graduate student Kimberly Toops.
"... iPS cells could someday be harvested from an individual patient and used as a kind of 'replacement parts kit' for that patient's own diseased tissues."
—Dr. Anne Greenlee
