California stem cell initiative taps UF scientist to help direct research

An internationally regarded authority on adult stem cells at the University of Florida will help oversee research spending at the newly established California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a landmark initiative to supply $3 billion for stem cell research at California universities and research institutions.

Dennis Steindler, executive director of UF’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute, was named to the institute’s Scientific and Medical Research Funding Working Group. He will serve for six years in an unpaid advisory capacity with 14 of the world’s top stem cell scientists, seven patient advocates and Robert Klein, chairman of the institute’s Independent Citizens Oversight Committee. His duties at UF will not change.

“This company of scientists is quite humbling to me,” said Steindler, a professor of neuroscience and neurosurgery and a member of the Program in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the UF College of Medicine. “All of the other scientists are truly fantastic investigators.”

The group, chaired by blood-disease expert Stuart Orkin of Harvard University, will help provide oversight as the institute disburses $3 billion for stem cell research over the next 10 years. Broadly defined, regenerative medicine seeks to help natural healing processes work better and faster. Stem cell research looks at ways to make use of undifferentiated cells that have the potential to produce any kind of cell in the body.

“This may be one of the more important service activities that any of our folks could do,” said Dr. Douglas Barrett, senior vice president for health affairs at the UF Health Science Center. “In addition, Dr. Steindler will have a unique view of the California initiative.”

California voters gave the go-ahead for the research institute this past November, calling for the establishment of a new state agency to make grants and provide loans for stem cell research, research facilities and other vital research opportunities.

“The citizens want reviewers from outside of California who don’t have conflicts of interest and who can make awards in a way that is open and fair,” Steindler said. “We will review the applications and judge which projects should have access to funding.”

Steindler, an expert in the field of regenerative medicine, also serves on the scientific advisory board for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, where he reviews grants and directs research to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease.

He joined the UF faculty in March 2001 and became executive director of the McKnight Brain Institute on Dec. 1. Before coming to UF, he was a professor in the neuroscience program at the University of Tennessee-Memphis.

Steindler and colleagues broke scientific ground when they showed that they could isolate living stem cells from adult cadaver brains, and they coined the term “brain marrow,” now commonly used in neuroscience circles to describe a substance in the brain that is rich in stem cells.

Panel members

Scientists and patient advocates outside of California will serve as advisers to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and will play a key role in deciding how grant money is disbursed. The 15 regular scientific members will be:

·Susan Bonner-Weir, diabetes expert at Harvard University's Joslin Institute

·Ali Brivanlou, developmental biologist at Rockefeller University

·Patricia Donohoe, a cancer specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital

·Andrew Feinberg, cancer expert at Johns Hopkins University

·Alexandra Joyner, developmental biologist at New York University

·Judith Kimble, a stem cell generalist at the University of Wisconsin

·Jeffrey Macklis, a neurodegenerative disease expert at Harvard

·Stuart Orkin, blood disease specialist at Harvard

·Jeffrey Rothstein, a neurologist and neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins

·Pablo Rubenstein, blood disease and blood-banking specialist at the New York Blood Center

·Dennis Steindler, adult stem cell biologist and neuroscientist at the University of Florida

·Ranier Storb, who works on Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle

·Clive Svenden, a specialist in neural stem cells at the University of Wisconsin

·Alan Trounson, stem cell generalist at Monash University in Australia

·George Yancopoulis, staff scientist, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals