CIRM Awards Grants To Develop Drugs For Spine Injury And HIV/AIDS
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has approved a potential treatment for patients with spinal cord injury and a therapeutic intended to help HIV patients build an AIDs-resistant blood system.
California’s stem cell agency approved both therapies under its Strategic Partnership program, designed to attract greater industry investments in CIRM-funded research projects and speed promising candidates into clinical trials.
Asterias Biotherapeutics developed the spinal cord therapy, which uses a type of cell found in the central nervous system. The company will test oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) to see whether transplanting them to the site of a spinal cord injury could help restore some of the patient’s functions. The company will receive a $14.3 million grant from CIRM. Commenting on the therapy’s potential, Chair of the governing Board Jonathan Thomas said, “This new investment means we have a chance to build on the lessons we learned first time around. If this therapy can achieve even very modest improvements for patients, it could have an enormous impact on the quality of their life, and the lives of their families.”
The agency also approved the joint research of John Zaia of the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope near Los Angeles, and Sangamo Biosciences of Richmond in the San Francisco Bay Area. The researchers’ work centered on the CCR5 protein found on immune cells. CCR5 is invaded by the AIDS virus, which uses the protein to force access into cells and infect them. The researchers plan to take a blood stem cell from patients with HIV and alter the CCR5 gene on the cells to make them resistant to HIV. The cells will then be reintroduced to the patient to see if it is possible to build a new, AIDS-resistant immune system.
The researchers will receive a $5.6 million grant from the agency to advance the potential HIV/AIDS therapy into an investigational therapy in clinical trials. Thomas said, “These programs help bring together the most rigorous scientific research with companies that know how to do clinical trials and move therapies through the regulatory process. It’s a partnership with a simple goal, get the most promising therapies to patients as quickly as possible.”
Both organizations have pledged to match the funds given by CIRM for the development of the investigational therapeutics.