University to Receive $2M for Stem Cell Research

Columbia University’s Morningside and Medical Center campuses will each receive $1 million from the state of New York as part of an initiative that grants New York institutions $14.5 million in funds for stem cell-related research.

The award marks the first phase of an 11-year, $600-million campaign. The $14.5 million will be split into $7.4 million for equipment and infrastructure, $6.1 million for continuing research, and $1 million for staff training.

The 25 New York universities and research institutions that received one-year grants of at least $100,000 were selected because each received at least $1 million from the National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health in 2006. Other than Columbia, Cornell, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Mount Sinai, and the University of Rochester each received the maximum award of $1 million.

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a professor in the department of biomedical engineering whose lab uses stem cells in tissue engineering, said, “We hope that this collective effort will accelerate the pace of stem cell research at Columbia, and help establish New York state as an international leader in converting basic science into new medical technologies.”

The funding will be used on equipment for many existing stem cell-related projects at Columbia. CUMC is currently involved in the Stem Cell Initiative, a $50-million campaign to raise funding for research, facilities, and recruitment.

At the Morningside campus, the funding will allow “a core facility for functional imaging of stem cells and engineered tissues, with top-of-the-line equipment for microscopy, small animal imaging, proteomics, histology, and molecular studies,” Vunjak-Novakovic said. “This is very important for us, as this is exactly the type of a resource we need to bring stem cell and tissue engineering research to the next level.”

Other benefits include a new high-resolution mass spectrometer for the Comparative Proteomics Center.

“Our goal is to move stem cell research from the ‘flat biology’ of petri dishes into controllable tissue models,” Vunjak-Novakovic said, leading to “new approaches to tissue engineering that simply do not exist at this time.”

The funding will be welcome news for scientists at work on stem cell research, a field that has not always benefitted from federal backing.

“The new resources from New York state should broaden and accelerate those efforts and allow those who are now dependent on federal funds to extend their scope beyond restrictions imposed by federal policies,” said Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Board which helps administer stem cell funding. “The public support with state dollars makes a clear statement about the state’s endorsement of medical science and should help attract new people here as well.”

Stem cell research in the United States has been limited under the Bush administration, but since Eliot Spitzer became New York’s governor in 2007, he has been a proponent of providing state funding for stem cell research to offset the lack of support from the federal government. In January 2007, Spitzer announced a plan to give $2 billion for state-funded research.

“Innovative stem cell research has the potential to yield therapies that may prevent, treat, and perhaps even cure many debilitating and life-threatening conditions,” Spitzer said in a press release. He also said that the funding will be crucial in helping to “build the infrastructure needed to support a robust research community.”

Alcmène Chalazonitis, a senior research scientist at CUMC’s Department of Pathology & Cell Biology, emphasized the importance of obtaining consistent government-sponsored funding.

“Let’s hope that federal funds do not stay limited,” Chalazonitis said. “The most important thing is that funding doesn’t trickle but comes in a steady allocation. We need sustained funding among many groups corroborating with each other to get the right tools, and we’re not there yet."

sandeep.soman@columbiaspectator.com