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Maine Stem Cell Center To Grow By JOSIE HUANG, Portland Press Herald Writer Friday, October 3, 2003 SCARBOROUGH — A world-class stem cell research center is expected to emerge here over the next five years, thanks to an $11.2 million grant to Maine Medical Center, hospital officials said Thursday. Stem cells are the frontier of medical research. Known as the body's master repair cells, they can divide and form into any kind of tissue, cell or organ. The Maine Medical Center Research Institute, the hospital's research arm, already has 31 researchers and technicians studying stem cells in some capacity. The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health will let administrators triple that number. Seven leading stem cell researchers will be recruited from around the country, and bring teams of six or seven people to the institute's new Center of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. The grant will also allow the institute to hire a support staff of several administrators, pathologists and technicians. More than half of the grant will be spent on salaries and in-state supplies and services. Equipment and chemical supplies will be bought out-of-state only when necessary, officials said. "This is a big part of the future economy for the state of Maine, and we're very much on the national and international map," said Vincent Conti, president and chief executive officer of Maine Med. Researchers say the expanded program at the institute in Scarborough will benefit the entire biomedical community. "It definitely helps build the overall capacity for the state to do biomedical research," said Keith Hutchison, a biochemistry professor at the University of Maine in Orono and a member of BRINMaine, a group promoting biomedical sciences in the state. "For us at the university, it offers research labs for students to work in," Hutchison said. "We already have some students placed down there, and this is just going to allow us to do more." Investigators at the research institute are trying to develop non-invasive treatments to stimulate stem cells to grow and repair tissues injured by illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, kidney disease and multiple sclerosis. "It would be so great to take a pill to regenerate your kidney" rather than have a kidney transplant, said Joseph Verdi, the researcher who will lead the stem cell center. So far, stem cells used in experiments at the research institute have come from mice and frogs. Researchers will begin a few experiments with human embryonic stem cells in three months or so, Verdi said. The center will get its stem cells from two NIH-approved stem cell lines. Opponents of stem cell research say it is unethical to work on human embryos, and fear human cloning. President Bush has limited federal funding for stem cell experiments. But the director of the research institute said that none of the experiments, "in our opinion, could be controversial." "We're doing good science here," Dr. Kenneth Ault said. Besides the research institute, only two other places in Maine do stem cell research - Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island Biological Lab in Salisbury Cove, Hutchison said. Institute officials said the center will work closely with researchers from Jackson Laboratory as well as doctors seeing patients at Maine Medical Center. Already, a Maine Med nephrologist is collecting data from kidney failure patients for stem cell researchers, Ault said. The NIH grant was intended for institutions in states that have historically been underfunded by the agency, said NIH spokeswoman Joyce McDonald. It is the second grant of its kind received by the research institute. Four years ago, it received a $10.5 million, five-year grant to expand a research program on angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. "I'm just pleased to see that NIH is putting its money all over the country," said Harold Jones, president of the Maine Parkinson's Society and a strong supporter of stem cell research. "Stem cells are a benefit to many diseases, and all these horrible diseases obviously deserve some solution." It's hoped that the new researchers whose salaries are covered by the latest NIH grant will be able to acquire their own grants and free up money for the institute to hire more researchers, officials said. There appears to be only one down side to expanding the staff: space. Expansion of the research institute will be necessary but has not yet been addressed. Josie Huang can be contacted at 791-6364 or at: [log in to unmask] SOURCE: The Portland Press Herald, ME http://www.pressherald.com/news/local/031003mainemed.shtml * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn