UCLA Funding Awards

• A $20-million donation to fund adult and embryonic stem cell research at UCLA from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation enhances a program that brings together biologists, chemists, engineers, geneticists and other scientists to develop new treatments for disease. <more>
• Three UCLA scientists received a combined $7.5 million in grants through the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine “New Faculty Awards” – grants designed to foster the next generation of stem cell researchers. <more>
• Researchers will work to genetically engineer the human immune system to fight melanoma, thanks to a $1.8-million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and other top L.A. institutions. <more>

Education

Bruins are exploring the medical possibilities and ethical issues surrounding stem cell research through courses across campus, including in the College of Letters and Science, the School of Law and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research.

10 Questions for Owen Witte

Owen Witte, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, talks about how “the work we do at UCLA really does reach out to the greater world in which we all live.”<more>

Since the passage of Prop. 71, ten established stem cell scientists have relocated to California, and 14 young investigators have come west – including six new UCLA scientists, according to an informal poll from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

This influx of top talent puts UCLA in position to make big advances in a field that holds incredible promise for treatment of cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, metabolic disorders and other medical conditions.

UCLA faculty have also become important framers of the ethical debate around human embryonic stem cells.

Here and now, UCLA is opening new frontiers in life science and public policy.

Stem Cells without Embryos or Eggs

UCLA researchers used genetic alteration to turn back the clock on human skin cells and create cells that are nearly identical to human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to become every cell type found in the human body. <more>

From Stem Cells to Neurons

UCLA stem-cell scientists grew functioning neurons from human embryonic stem cells – neurons that will allow them to create models of and study diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, prefrontal dementia and schizophrenia.
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AIDS Gene Therapy

Raising hopes for a gene therapy to combat AIDS, UCLA scientists derived T-cells from human embryonic stem cells. <more>

Law

The explosion of interest in stem cell research raises a raft of controversial policy questions. UCLA School of Law’s Russell Korobkin delivers the first comprehensive analysis of the issue in his book Stem Cell Century: Law and Policy for a Breakthrough Technology.<more>