Healthcare Technology Featured Article

July 11, 2011

NHLBI Grant Awarded to Medical College of Wisconsin and Cellular Dynamics


The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) recently announced the receipt of a research grant award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) which will be used to investigate the mechanisms underlying Left Ventricular Hypertrophy. 

In common terms, Left Ventricular Hypertrophy is known as an increase of the size and weight of the heart. It is one of the most common and major risk factors that result in heart disease and heart failure that occurs due to high blood pressure or diabetes. Both MCW and CDI will use the grant funds to generate 250 induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines taken from blood samples drawn from Caucasian and African-American families in the Hypertension Genetic Epidemiology Network (HyperGEN). The grant funds come up to $6.255,632 million and will be spread over a period of five years.

In a release, Ulrich Broeckel, MD, professor of Pediatrics, Medicine and Physiology at MCW and associate director at the Children's Research Institute said that, “This grant builds on years of our research to identify genes for this disease. We now have the wonderful opportunity to capitalize on the latest stem cell technology to study human heart cells in the laboratory. This technology is truly revolutionary since each cell line stands for an individual patient, and we can now start to study the unique disease mechanisms and test new treatments and drugs based on each individual's unique genetic makeup. This grant also shows the strength of collaborations between academic investigators and a company which leads to cutting edge research.”

iPSCs can be created from adult cells, such as blood or skin, which are reverse engineered to a stem cell state, after which they can turn into any cell type in the body. This grant will help researchers improve future methods for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of these conditions. 

Emile Nuwaysir, chief operating officer of CDI said that, “Funding of this grant will enable Cellular Dynamics to generate an unprecedented 250 human iPSC lines as well as heart cells derived from those lines. Until now, functional studies for left ventricular hypertrophy have been limited because human primary cardiomyocytes, or heart cells taken from living tissue, were not available for functional analysis.” 

He continued, “Human iPSC technology provides a solution to this problem. CDI's human iPSC-derived heart cells, iCell Cardiomyocytes, exhibit properties highly similar to human primary cells and thus are a relevant model system for the required functional analysis. In addition, CDI is the only company with the capability to manufacture iPSCs and differentiate them in large numbers and at high quality and purity from a typical, standard blood draw, thus enabling MCW to perform this series of experiments. We are particularly excited about this project because we see it as a harbinger of the next big scientific wave: the linking of genotype to phenotype through iPSC-derived terminal tissue cells.”

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Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of Calvin’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell
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