UCSF Brain Tumor Stem Cell Grant to Drive Development of Novel Therapy

A team of scientists representing 5 California-based institutions have received a grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to advance stem cell based strategies for treating brain tumors. The objective of the grant is to file a new drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration within four years, driving a stem cell-associated therapy towards clinical trial. 

 

The brain tumor team is led by Mitchel Berger, MD, chair of the UCSF Department of Neurosurgery, and includes collaborators at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at UCSD (Webster Cavenee, PhD and Co-PI, and Frank Furnari, PhD), UCLA (Paul Mischel, MD, PhD, Tim Cloughesy, MD, and Linda Liau, MD, PhD), the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Evan Snyder, MD, PhD and Co-PI), and the Salk Institute (Inder Verma, PhD). Other key investigators for the UCSF group include C. David James, PhD, Tomoko Ozawa, MD, PhD, Russell Pieper, PhD, Mei-Yin Polley, PhD, Michael Prados, MD, and Elizabeth Read, MD.

 

The brain tumor team will receive $19,162,435 to genetically engineer stem cells that home to and deliver products resulting in cell death specific to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The concept is based on the team's discovery that neural stem cells naturally seek out brain tumor cells.  If the product of this research is approved by the FDA, it would be tested first in patients with recurrent GBM.

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