June 6, 2007

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The governing board of California's stem cell agency has awarded funding to UC Davis for construction of a new stem cell research facility. At the June 5 meeting of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC), members awarded UC Davis $2.8 million over three years for the Translational Human Embryonic Stem Cell Shared Research Facility.

The facility will be located near the university's California National Primate Research Center in Davis and will provide stem cell laboratories for investigators performing regenerative medicine research in nonhuman primate models. The project goes beyond a traditional laboratory designed just for UC Davis researchers and will include scientific partners from around the state. The approved application included letters indicating interest in using the facility from investigators at a variety of institutions in California, including UC Merced, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Stanford University and others.

The 2,500 square-foot facility will be the only location in the state with such close proximity to nonhuman primates, providing scientists a unique research opportunity to use nonhuman primate models to study stem cell techniques and therapies that may one day be used for human patients.

"The connection with our primate research center is what makes this facility so distinctive," said Alice Tarantal, a professor of pediatrics who will be program director for the new facility. "Studies with nonhuman primates are essential for addressing key questions that cannot be answered in other species. The safety data in such studies is vastly superior to other animal models, which is why this type of facility is absolutely needed for human embryonic stem cell research before any attempts are made in clinical trials for humans."

Using nonhuman primate models, the new facility will support studies aimed at understanding human embryonic stem cells and how they become blood cells and vessels that have potential for the treatment of disorders such as sickle cell disease and vascular abnormalities associated with heart disease. In addition, regeneration of damaged organs such as the heart, lung, liver or kidney may require new methods to reconstruct these tissues using biological "scaffolds" on which to grow the cells. The facility will provide the opportunity to assess the efficacy and safety in nonhuman primates prior to testing therapies in humans.

"In order to truly advance our work in regenerative medicine," said Ann Bonham, executive associate dean for academic affairs, "California must have the physical resources, the laboratories and other facilities, to study stem cells in animal models prior to clinical trials. Our new shared facilities project does exactly that by offering an unparalleled opportunity for scientists to both learn and collaborate."

Investigations planned for the UC Davis stem cell facility also include using newly developed biomedical imaging methods to monitor the movement of stem cells once they are injected into nonhuman primate models and eventually into patients.

The $2.8 million shared-facility grant to UC Davis was among the $50 million approved by the ICOC yesterday to finance the construction of research laboratories at 17 academic and non-profit institutions around the state. Each laboratory is scheduled to be completed and available to researchers within six months to two years after grant funds are received from the state.

UC Davis has more than 20 scientists working on a variety of stem cell investigations in both Davis and Sacramento. It is currently constructing a 100,000 square-foot stem cell research facility on its campus in Sacramento, where researchers will have access to state-of-the-art laboratories and cell manufacturing and testing rooms. That project, along with the newly-funded Translational Human Embryonic Stem Cell Shared Research Facility in Davis, will complement the university's Clinical and Translational Science Center, which is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 2005, the NIH awarded $6 million to fund a Center of Excellence in Translational Human Stem Cell Research on the Davis campus. One of only two such centers in the nation, it is focused on exploring stem and progenitor cell therapies for the treatment of childhood diseases. The programs are designed to expedite the translation and integration of scientific research into discoveries and treatments that benefit society.