Biomedical Discovery District | Minnesota Medical Foundation

U breaks ground on a new campus landmark

2011-10-24T16:56:51Z

The University of Minnesota broke ground May 11 on a state-of-the-art research building — the “gateway” to the institution’s Biomedical Discovery District. When it’s complete in spring 2013, the Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building will bring together top University investigators to discover the next wave of cancer and cardiovascular therapies. Cancer researchers housed in the new facility will study chemical biology with a focus on chemical carcinogens as a cause of cancer and build new models to find better cancer treatments, while heart researchers housed there plan to study heart regeneration and development, muscular dystrophy, congenital heart disease, and genomics.

See the construction in action at www.ahc.umn.edu/research/bdd/web-cam.

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Construction under way on new research building

2011-09-15T17:24:58Z

When the University of Minnesota’s new, state-of-the-art cancer and cardiovascular research building is complete in 2013, it will bring top researchers together across disciplines to discover the next generation of cancer and heart therapies.

The cancer researchers housed there plan to study chemical biology with a focus on chemical carcinogens as a cause of cancer. Others will build new models to find better cancer treatments.

Heart researchers housed there plan to study cardiac regeneration and development, muscular dystrophy, congenital heart medicine, and genomics.

The building will be the gateway to the University’s Biomedical Discovery District (BDD), the result of a $292 million funding program approved by the state of Minnesota in 2008. The projected economic impact of this district is truly impressive:

The BDD is expected to attract as much as $40 million in new research funding each year.
In the short term, the BDD has created approximately 5,000 construction jobs. In the long term, it will create more biomedical science jobs at the University and fuel Minnesota’s biomedical industry.
Every $1 million in federally sponsored research generates more than $2 million in new business activity in the state.

Watch the progress

Watch the construction of the cancer and cardiovascular research building as it happens on a live webcam.

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A better future in sight for kids

2010-12-21T18:16:33Z

Minnesota Lions make a $3M pledge to help prevent blindness in infants and children

Six-year-old Kira Rogers doesn’t know much about the Minnesota Lions, but the Lions’ 50-year partnership with the University was intended to help children just like her.

A month after Kira was born, her mother, Michele, noticed something wrong with Kira’s right eye. “Her eyelid looked red. The next day it looked puffier. Each day it looked a little puffier,” she says.

Kira’s doctor soon referred the family to the University of Minnesota. Michele and her husband, Mike, took Kira from their home in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, to meet with University ophthalmologist Gail Summers, M.D., and later to see pediatric oncologist Marie Steiner, M.D. An MRI confirmed that Kira had a hemangioma — a fast-growing noncancerous tumor.

The tumor’s location in Kira’s eye had serious medical implications. Michele and Mike Rogers learned that as Kira grew older, the tumor would affect her sight, put pressure on her eye, and affect her visual development in that eye. With the help of University doctors, they held Kira’s hand through six years of treatment and surgeries to remove the tumor, improve the appearance of her eyelid, and preserve her sight.

Fortunately, the surgeries were successful. Now the spunky 6-year-old loves going to kindergarten — and giving hugs. Her eye is vastly improved, and her prognosis is excellent.

“I didn’t think it would end like this,” says Mike Rogers, happily. “I felt like these doctors could move mountains for us.”

The Lions’ legacy

Success stories like Kira’s have been the impetus behind the Minnesota Lions’ longtime support of the Medical School’s Department of Ophthalmology.

In July the Minnesota Lions donated $1 million toward a new $3 million pledge to establish the Minnesota Lions Fund to Prevent Blindness in Infants and Children at the University. The money will advance research, education, and care in the Department of Ophthalmology to help children like Kira.

Department head Jay Krachmer, M.D., says the Lions’ recent pledge will have a tremendous impact. “Because of this fund, babies will not go blind due to retinopathy of prematurity, congenital cataracts, congenital glaucoma, and other sight-threatening conditions,” he says.

The pledge represents a milestone in the Lions’ dedication to the University’s work in blindness prevention and marks the 50-year partnership of the Minnesota Lions, Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, and the Department of Ophthalmology.

The Minnesota Lions Eye Bank provides donor eye tissue for transplantation, research, and teaching and promotes donation through education. It has helped restore sight to more than 23,000 people.

Over the years, the Minnesota Lions have launched and sustained several other important initiatives with the University, including establishing the Lions Children’s Eye Clinic, the William H. Knobloch Retina Chair, and the Lions Macular Degeneration Center. They also helped build the Lions Research Building at the University and have garnered community support for correcting vision problems and contributed countless hours of volunteer time.

About 22,000 Lions are working on service- focused projects throughout Minnesota. “Each Lions Club has its own unique way of raising funds,” says Richard Reger, Minnesota Eye Bank, Inc., board chair. “Some have pancake feeds and fishing tournaments, but the dedication and commitment is always there to reach out to the less fortunate.”

Krachmer concurs: “When Lions see that something needs to get done, they are right up there volunteering and doing it before others even know about it,” he says. “Over these 50 years, they have said, ‘How can we help?’ That’s the relationship we have with the Minnesota Lions.”

That legacy has allowed vision experts at the University to do more for families like Kira’s, who say they are grateful that they had access to University doctors’ skill< and expertise.

“They’ve all been compassionate and aggressive — exhausting every possibility,” says Michele. “At the U, they’re finding new solutions and looking for the best treatments for the next Kira.”

By Robyn White

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Staying power

2010-11-16T19:25:17Z

Longtime health sciences leader Frank Cerra, M.D., reflects on his 30-year career at the U

No one told senior vice president for health sciences and Medical School dean Frank Cerra, M.D., that the average tenure for a medical school leader in this country is only three and a half years. But then there’s been nothing average about Cerra since the day in 1981 when he arrived at the University of Minnesota as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Surgery.

He first served as Medical School dean in 1995, when then-University President Nils Hasselmo appointed him to the role in the midst of a tumultuous period for the health sciences. Those 15 years of administrative service end with the calendar year, as Cerra reaches 30 years of experience on campus. His plan: to return to his academic home in the Department of Surgery. Following are his reflections on what has changed—and remained the same—for the University’s health sciences and Medical School.

Medical Bulletin : What drew you to the Medical School’s Department of Surgery?

Frank Cerra : The University recruited me for two reasons: One, I was one of the original surgical “intensivists”; and, two, I was conducting groundbreaking research on the metabolism of injury from trauma—bullets, knives, big surgery—those kinds of things. My research resulted in a lot important work on metabolism and the role of nutrients in response to injury—and it led to a number of publications and patents.

The University was a great place to be. It was innovative. It was creative. I had residents in the laboratory for two to three years, and I always had postdocs. I was able to start one of the first surgical critical care residencies in the country. It populated many surgical ICUs around the country. That was in 1986-87.

MB: How did you move from research into administration?

FC: As I worked in the ICU, I was asked to do more and more management. For example, putting in an electronic medical record became my project. Here’s just a simple thing: Between the time a doctor ordered a blood test and it got back to the patient’s bedside, 15 people handled the blood sample, and it was recorded on one of about 15 sheets of paper at the bedside. Well, it’s hard enough to take care of a patient without putting up with that, so I helped to automate the ICU. Then I become involved in setting up what is now LifeLink III, the medical helicopter system.

Eventually, the dean of the Medical School, Shelley Chou, asked me to become chair of surgery. I started in October 1994. The next May, after Dr. Chou left the University, I became dean of the Medical School.

In 1996, when Bill Brody left the University, I was asked to take on his role as provost of the Academic Health Center. It was a very tumultuous time. The Medical School was facing a big deficit; the hospital was facing a big deficit; we were looking at selling the hospital. People were leaving right and left—mostly clinical faculty in the Medical School. When Nils Hasselmo called me to offer the position, I thought about it awhile, and said, “Yep, I think I’d like to take a hand at that.” I thought, “This is a critical patient, and I’m a critical care doc. This might be an opportunity to do something really good for the future of providers.”

MB: How have students changed since you first arrived on campus?

FC: Student populations are very different. When I first started out in this business, it was more of, “What’s in it for me?” That was the consideration. The students were smart, yes, but we didn’t see the same set of professional values we see today. At that time, you didn’t talk about values in health professional education—with the exception of nursing. Nursing has always done that.

Today’s students are committed to health in a very different way—and once they commit, they really do. The difference is they’re not interested in 80-hour work weeks. They want their time off. They want to develop their families. Way back when, that’s not what you did.

MB: What about the average faculty? How are they different today?

FC: It’s tough to talk about the average faculty, but I’ll give it a try. The average faculty member then was interested in his or her RO1 [NIH] grant. How is my career going to progress, am I going to get tenure? I’m willing to teach, but I really just want to give my lecture and move on. I’m not really interested in student mentorship; my role is in the research lab. I’ll go to the clinic when I’m able to, but not necessarily when I’m supposed to.

Of course, I’m over-exaggerating to make a point. But there’s been almost a 180-degree turn. When you talk to faculty members today, they’re much more committed to clinical practice and to teaching in the clinical setting. And for that matter, basic scientists’ commitment to teaching is very different; their grant portfolios are much more interdisciplinary now.

As we’ve all come to realize, you can’t possibly know everything there is to know in one area. You need to collaborate with people from other schools and other disciplines.

MB: What one piece of advice do you have for your successor?

FC: Never quit thinking big. Vision is what drives progress, in my opinion. That must be a critical component of the new leadership. The ability to create and capture a vision, incorporate other people’s visions into it, create followers, and what’s more important, make it happen. It’s all about leadership and interpersonal relationships and making sure that what you’re doing is to satisfy the faculty’s needs and not your own.

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Frank B. Cerra, M.D.

Senior vice president for health sciences, University of Minnesota
Dean, Medical School
Leader of the Academic Health Center, a $1.2 billion enterprise
Named senior vice president in 1996 and is the first to hold the dual position of senior vice president and dean of the Medical School, roles the University combined in July 2009

Professional background

B.A. in biology from State University of New York at Binghamton
M.D. from Northwestern University School of Medicine
Arrived at the University of Minnesota in 1981 as director of surgical critical care
Holds six patents
Codeveloped the bioartificial liver, a device similar to a kidney dialysis machine

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Medical Biosciences Building named in honor of Wallins, longtime U supporters

2010-11-16T18:06:13Z

In recognition of a lifetime of support, the University of Minnesota in June named the newest building in its Biomedical Discovery District the Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building.

The growing district is a biomedical sciences research park located on the University’s East Bank campus near TCF Bank Stadium. In addition to their generous financial support, the Wallins — both University alumni — have contributed their time and talents to the advancement of higher education, particularly in the health sciences.

“Their commitment to higher education and medical research is unrivaled,” says University President Robert Bruininks, Ph.D. “The Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building aptly honors their longtime commitment to and support of the University of Minnesota.”

Win Wallin, a Minnesota Medical Foundation trustee, led the capital campaign in the early 1990s that raised $30 million to construct the Masonic Cancer Research Building. Additionally, he and Maxine have established the Winston R. and Maxine H. Wallin Land-Grant Chair in Cancer Prevention and Genetics and were major contributors to the John H. Kersey Chair in Cancer Research.

The Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building houses investigators working in several areas of neurosciences research, including those involved with the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center and the N. Bud Grossman Center for Memory Research and Care.

When complete, the multiphase Biomedical Discovery District project will provide more than 700,000 square feet of space (larger than 12 football fields) for 1,000 investigators and personnel to collaborate on research leading to lifesaving discoveries.

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New cancer and heart research building will foster collaboration

2010-10-14T18:18:31Z

As University of Minnesota leaders continue to refine the design plans for a new Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Complex in the institution’s burgeoning Biomedical Discovery District, investigators are eager to take advantage of the building’s many benefits.

The new facility is expected to house 24 lead cancer researchers plus their staffs. Among those researchers is David Largaespada, Ph.D., who oversees the Masonic Cancer Center’s Genetic Mechanisms of Cancer Research Program.

Largaespada uses mouse models of human cancers in his work. He envisions a “mouse hospital” where his team can conduct preclinical studies of potential treatments to help determine which therapies might be beneficial for patients.

“The therapies that will work are going to be complex,” Largaespada says.

And that’s why the new research building is so important, he adds. Not only will it have a large attached vivarium for housing mice and easy access to the University’s world-leading Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, but it will also offer him and his colleagues in chemistry, genetics, and mouse modeling a space to work together seamlessly.

This kind of interconnectedness fosters research productivity, allowing scientists to move basic science breakthroughs to the clinic faster.

“I think it will be a really good neighborhood for this kind of work,” Largaespada says.

Designed to be the centerpiece of the Biomedical Discovery District, the Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Complex will include advanced laboratory, instrumentation, and support facilities for cancer and heart research. Construction is scheduled to begin on this 280,000-square-foot building next spring.

To learn how you can support cancer research in the new facility, please contact Catherine McGlinch at 612-626-5456 or c.mcglinch@mmf.umn.edu.

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Minnesota Lions pledge $3M to prevent blindness in infants and children, mark 50-year partnership with the U

2010-07-31T18:43:01Z

Contact: Chuck Semrow, Minnesota Medical Foundation, (612) 624-6313;
Jennifer Marshall, Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, Inc., (612) 626-6081

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (July 31, 2010)—Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, Inc., board chair Richard J. Reger presented a $3 million check, representing a pledge to the University of Minnesota to establish the Minnesota Lions Fund to Prevent Blindness in Infants and Children.

The gift, made through the Minnesota Medical Foundation, will advance research, education and care in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

This pledge represents a milestone in the Lions’ steadfast commitment to supporting the University’s efforts in blindness prevention and marks the 50-year partnership between the Minnesota Lions, Minnesota Lions Eye Bank and the University’s Department of Ophthalmology.

Jay Krachmer, M.D., head of the department, says this gift will have a “massive” impact. “Because of this fund, babies will not go blind because of retinopathy of prematurity, congenital cataracts, congenital glaucoma and other sight-threatening conditions,” he says. Krachmer added that department faculty members in every specialty will benefit from this gift, which will help them to better serve patients.

“When Lions see that something needs to get done, they are right up there volunteering and doing it before others even know about it,” Krachmer says. “Over these 50 years, they have said, ‘How can we help?’ That’s the relationship we have with the Minnesota Lions.”

The Minnesota Lions Eye Bank, the first Lions partnership with the ophthalmology department, provides donor eye tissue for transplantation, research and teaching and promotes donation through education. The Eye Bank has helped restore sight to more than 22,000 people. In addition, over the years the Minnesota Lions launched and sustained several other important initiatives with the University, including establishing the Lions Children’s Eye Clinic, the William H. Knobloch Retina Chair, the Lions Macular Degeneration Center and helping build the Lions Research Building. They have also garnered community support for vision issues and contributed countless hours of volunteer time.

“Over the years, I have witnessed firsthand the stories of people who have lost loved ones and donated their organs, and also the people who have received donor tissue. These people are the reason for the Minnesota Lions Eye Bank and the good we have done over the years,” says Reger. “I am very proud of the Eye Bank and the University of Minnesota and its staff for all that they accomplish through the partnership.”

There are approximately 22,000 Lions working on service-focused projects throughout Minnesota. “Each Lions Club has its own unique way of raising funds,” Reger says. “Some have pancake feeds and fishing tournaments, but the dedication and commitment is always there to reach out to the less fortunate.”

The Minnesota Medical Foundation has raised and managed private gifts that expand what’s possible in health and medical research, education and care at the University of Minnesota since 1939. For more information, please visit www.mmf.umn.edu or call (612) 625-1440.

Minnesota Lions Clubs are part of Lions Clubs International, which boasts more than 1.35 million members—making it the world’s largest service organization. Lions members work to empower volunteers to serve their communities, meet humanitarian needs, encourage peace and promote international understanding. For more information, please visit www.lionsmd5m.org.

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Medical Biosciences Building named for Win and Maxine Wallin

2010-06-21T18:41:47Z

Contacts: Sarah Youngerman, Minnesota Medical Foundation, syounger@umn.edu, 651-485-7171
Daniel Wolter, University News Service, wolter@umn.edu, 612-625-8510

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (06/21/2010) —In recognition of a lifetime of support, the University of Minnesota has named the newest building in its Biomedical Discovery District the Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building.

The building houses researchers working in brain sciences, including Alzheimer’s disease and movement disorders, and immunology. It is part of the growing Biomedical Discovery District, a state-of-the-art research park located near TCF Bank Stadium.

“The Wallins’ generous gifts of time, talent and financial support have contributed immeasurably to the life and vitality of the University of Minnesota — their commitment to higher education and medical research is unrivaled,” said university President Robert Bruininks. “The Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building aptly honors their longtime commitment to and support of the University of Minnesota.”

In addition to their generous financial support, the Wallins — both University of Minnesota graduates — have contributed their time and talents to the advancement of higher education, particularly in the health sciences.

In 1993, Winston “Win” Wallin became a special adviser to then-university President Nils Hasselmo, overseeing the Academic Health Center in a time of great turbulence and change. He also chaired the Masonic Cancer Center’s capital campaign, which raised $30 million to construct the Masonic Cancer Research Building — the only building on campus fully supported by private dollars. Additionally, he and Maxine personally established the Winston R. and Maxine H. Wallin Land-Grant Chair in Cancer Prevention and Genetics and were major contributors to the John H. Kersey Chair in Cancer Research.

As chair of the Medical School’s Dean’s Board of Visitors, an advisory group to the dean, Win Wallin was an early advocate of the Biomedical Discovery District and championed the importance of medical research to the future of the university and the state.

He is currently a trustee of the Minnesota Medical Foundation, a member of the Medical School Dean’s Board of Visitors and trustee emeritus of the University of Minnesota Foundation. In 1992, he was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award and in 1995 was presented with an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Medical School.

Win and Maxine Wallin are recognized for their extraordinary commitment to higher education through a tremendously successful college scholarship program for Minneapolis high school students.

In his professional life, Win Wallin earned wide admiration for his strong and ethical leadership. After 34 years with Pillsbury, rising from grain trader to president and chief operating officer, he became chief executive officer of Medtronic, Inc., and within six years led the pioneering Minnesota medical device maker to world prominence.

He has served as Campaign Minnesota honorary co-chair and on the Masonic Cancer Center Community Advisory Board; as a member of the presidential advisory search committee in 1996; and chair of the Carlson School of Management Board of Overseers.

Building namings such as this are approved both by the All-University Honors Committee, which consists of faculty, students, staff and alumni as well as the Board of Regents.

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New Medical Biosciences Building brings experts together to accelerate research

2010-05-04T19:32:10Z

A chat between colleagues in the hallway can spark the beginnings of a major medical discovery. For researchers at the University of Minnesota whose offices may be scattered across campus‚ bouncing ideas off of one another in person just got easier.

In December, the University opened a $79.3 million, 115‚000-plus-square-foot Medical Biosciences Building to house scientists who are studying Alzheimer’s disease and other brain-related diseases as well as the immune system.

Located behind the TCF Bank Stadium, the building is part of the University’s Biomedical Discovery District—the result of a $292 million funding program approved by the 2008 Minnesota Legislature—and will house 210 researchers, including 25 principal investigators.

It is home to world-leading research programs in Alzheimer’s disease, ataxia, and other neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases such as muscular dystrophy‚ Parkinson’s disease‚ ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), as well as immunology. And it is linked by a skyway to the University’s internationally renowned Center for Magnetic Resonance Research.

Harry Orr, Ph.D., a lead ataxia researcher and director of the University’s Institute for Translational Neuroscience, says that the new building will strengthen recruiting and collaboration. “There’s a lot of overlap with the pathways in immunology and neurosciences. We talked about joint research over the years, but now we’re in the same building,” he says. “I want to find a treatment for ataxia in the next 10 years. Given that goal, I can’t think of a better place to be.”

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Great expectations

2009-11-03T23:27:59Z

The potential to transform medicine looms large as the Stem Cell Institute embarks on its second decade of discovery

Amid the fanfare over the University of Minnesota’s new TCF Bank Stadium, scientists working in labs across the street from it are engaged in quieter but higher-stakes activities. These leading researchers at the University’s Stem Cell Institute along with others performing stem cell research across the campus may hold in their Petri dishes the keys to unlocking the mysteries of diabetes, cancer, heart failure, brain injury — even aging.

Established in 1999, the Stem Cell Institute was the first in the nation to take an interdisciplinary approach to the burgeoning field of stem cell science. “Minnesota was on our radar as one of the places that had made a strong commitment to stem cell research,” recalls U of M cardiac researcher Doris Taylor, Ph.D., a Duke University faculty member at the time.

Progress was stymied nationally, however, when the government severely restricted federal funding for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) studies, and the science itself proved extremely difficult to master.

But today, as the Stem Cell Institute marks its first decade, another “medical revolution” is taking place, says John E. Wagner, M.D., clinical director of research at the institute and director of the blood and marrow transplant program in the Department of Pediatrics. Fueling that revolution are promising new discoveries using stem cells — embryonic stem cells, which have become more available under revised federal guidelines, as well as stem cells from skin, bone marrow, and umbilical cord blood.

Housed just a stone’s throw from the new football stadium in the McGuire Translational Research Facility, the Stem Cell Institute is drawing on expertise from across the University to launch its next decade of discovery. The state-of-the-art facility — anchor to the University’s emerging Biomedical Discovery District — was made possible in large part by a $10 million gift from the William W. and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation that also triggered state bonding.

The facility is at the core of our discoveries, says Stem Cell Institute director Jonathan Slack, Ph.D., F.Med.Sci. “But the wider group of 32 labs across campus is also essential for our continued success.”

Unprecedented opportunity

It’s well known that all stem cells share an ability to reproduce themselves and to differentiate into specific cell types. What’s shaken up the field lately is a monumental discovery that occurred in 2006. Researchers in Japan announced that they had taken a handful of genes and turned an ordinary skin cell backward in its development until it became an undifferentiated stem cell.

Known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, they present an unprecedented opportunity. They come from a plentiful, easy-to-obtain source — skin — and they’re not controversial in the way that embryonic stem cells have been.

One of Slack’s first actions was to set up a facility to introduce iPS technology to Minnesota. Led by research associate James Dutton, Ph.D., the Stem Cell Institute has made a number of new human and mouse iPS cell lines and has helped several other groups at the University make their own iPS cells.

Meri Firpo, Ph.D., an assistant professor of endocrinology, is at the forefront of this new technology. Recruited by the University four years ago to investigate stem cell treatments for type 1 diabetes, she is working to develop transplantable, insulin-secreting cells.

The University has a world-renowned program in pancreas cell transplantation, but cells from donor cadaver organs are in short supply, and transplant patients are at risk of suffering an adverse immune response. Now, with iPS technology, Firpo hopes to develop productive islet cells that work in humans and sidestep the rejection problems inherent in transplantation.

“Stem cells provide another potential source of islets for transplantation and offer us tremendous potential to conquer this complicated disease,” says Firpo, whose research got a major boost from a $40 million pledge made last December by the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation to a group of University scientists aiming to develop a cure for type 1 diabetes.

A powerful weapon

For Dan S. Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Stem Cell Institute, iPS cells offer a new take on another difficult challenge. Trained in hematology and immunology, Kaufman completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin- Madison in the very lab where human embryonic stem cells were first isolated. Indeed, while at Wisconsin, he was the first to produce blood cells from hESCs.

Now Kaufman is investigating the use of iPS cells to create hematopoietic stem cells, the blood-reconstituting cells found in bone marrow and cord blood, to be used in such therapies as bone marrow transplants to treat patients with leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and other cancers. He’ll compare the effectiveness and efficiency of using iPS cells with using embryonic stem cells to derive blood cells suitable for these therapies.

That does not mean that Kaufman has closed the door on embryonic stem cells. In fact, he recently turned hESCs into disease-fighting natural killer (NK) cells that are able to completely eliminate human leukemia cells when transplanted into a mouse model. His dramatic results showed that the hESC-derived NK cells were significantly more potent killers of cancerous tumor cells than other NK cell populations tested, including those derived from umbilical cord blood. He also has shown that the hESC-generated NK cells are highly effective in killing breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and brain tumor cells. Kaufman believes that iPS cell technology holds potential for generating NK cells from a patient’s own cells. But work along those lines only intensifies research on hESCs, he says, because in order to coax iPS cells to differentiate into mature NK cells, researchers will need to know much more about how “the real McCoy” does it.

“Human embryonic stem cells provide the gold standard against which to compare iPS cells,” Kaufman says. “We want to use all available avenues to determine the optimal source of cells to treat cancer.”

Damage repair

John Wagner and colleagues Jakub Tolar, M.D., Ph.D., and Bruce Blazar, M.D., were the first to demonstrate that stem cells found in bone marrow can repair skin. In a rare but devastating skin disease called epidermolysis bullosa, in which the skin continuously blisters and scars, these stem cell have been shown to “home” to the skin and replace the missing protein collagen 7 that anchors the skin to the body.

“This is the first time ever that stem cells have repaired an extracellular matrix disease, and the implications for the treatment of many diseases are substantial,” says Wagner, who holds the Children’s Cancer Research Fund Hageboeck Chair in Pediatric Cancer Research and the McKnight Presidential Chair in Hematology and Oncology.

Changing the world for people with diseased hearts, or “reversing aging” is what occupies Doris Taylor, now director of the University’s Center for Cardiovascular Repair. She and her team have started their search with repairing the heart and more recently investigated the use of bone marrow stem cells in treating plaque buildup in animal models of atherosclerosis and found that the cells can reverse blood vessel damage. They have also shown that stem cells differ in men and women and that those differences may begin to explain why men develop heart disease earlier than women.

Taylor also is interested in exploring the “nature vs. nurture of stem cells,” and she has just the tool to investigate that question. She and her lab made news around the world last year when they used a detergent to rinse away the heart cells from a cadaver rat heart, leaving behind the extracellular matrix. On the remaining scaffold, the team then rebuilt beating muscle and blood vessels.

Since stem cells respond to cues from the environment they’re introduced to, researchers can use that extracellular matrix to understand how a stem cell perceives its mission. “Does it know where it came from,” Taylor poses, “or does it know what it should be?” The tool may also reveal whether stem cells act differently when introduced to an area where injury, like a heart attack, has occurred. By altering genes and cell markers, “we can learn what it takes to rebuild functioning tissue,” she says.

Taylor, who holds the Medtronic-Bakken Chair in Cardiovascular Repair, believes chronic disease and aging are basically failures of the body’s stem cells and also is working with her team to develop stem cell approaches to repair early aging-related injury.

Walter Low, Ph.D., professor and associate head of research in the Department of Neurosurgery, is working on tissue repair, too — in the brain. He and his team discovered a type of stem cell within human umbilical cord blood that has properties of multipotent stem cells (which can form cells of many kinds of tissue), and they are investigating whether these cells can restore brain tissue following an ischemic stroke, ultimately improving limb mobility.

They are also taking a close look at stem cells that cause damage rather than repair it. Two years ago, Low and John Ohlfest, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, identified and characterized mutated neural stem cells that are capable of causing brain tumors. These socalled cancer stem cells or brain tumor stem cells are the source of the selfrenewing cells within tumors, explains Low, who holds the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Aging.

The researchers developed a brain tumor vaccine that could destroy brain tumor stem cells, and recently, they obtained FDA approval to launch a phase 1 clinical trial to determine the safety of their brain tumor vaccine for patients with glioblastoma multiforme — a dire prognosis. The vaccine may eradicate the malignancy and, Low hopes, “other types of cancers where cancer stem cells are the source of the tumor.”

An eye to the future

The diversity of such top-level expertise throughout the University will ensure that the Stem Cell Institute remains internationally competitive over the next decade, notes Slack, holder of the Edmund and Anna Marie Tulloch Chair in Stem Cell Biology.

Slack, who came to Minnesota two years ago from Britain’s University of Bath, is internationally known for his discovery of the molecular cues that control embryonic development. His more recent work has focused on the basic science of regeneration — and specifically on how tadpoles can regrow the muscle and spinal cord of injured tails and the mechanisms whereby one cell type can change into another.

As the institute’s director, Slack is forging partnerships with scientists not only across the University but also beyond its walls. The Stem Cell Institute is working with researchers at the University’s Lillehei Heart Institute and the University of Wisconsin- Madison, for example, to study heart and blood progenitor cells to learn more about normal heart and blood development and investigate possible therapies using the progenitor cell populations.

Slack has also worked with University neurology professor John Day, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Center, and scientists at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium to create a pig model of muscular dystrophy that will enable more accurate studies of cell therapy to treat the disease.

Other key partners include the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and the University’s Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics Facility, which has the capability to grow large numbers of cells and the expertise to translate stem cells and their derivatives into therapies for patients.

“This is a very exciting moment,” Slack concludes. “The future of cell therapy is really limitless.”

By Kate Ledger

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Revised stem cell policies open new doors

In a White House ceremony last March, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to lift restrictions put in place by former President George W. Bush that cut off federal support for any research involving human embryonic stem cells except for lines that had been derived before August 9, 2001.

“[Scientists] are no longer restricted to the 62 lines of which only a portion was viable,” says University neurosurgery professor Walter Low, Ph.D., who studies the use of stem cells in nervous system repair. Many of those, Low says, were “grown in conditions that were not conducive to clinical studies.” Any scientist who created new lines of embryonic stem cells or collaborated on embryonic stem cell research had to do so with private funding.

The University of Minnesota designed strict procedures that allowed research to continue without any federal or state funds. Now, under the new federal policy, as many as 700 stem cell lines may be available, with the requirement that they must have been obtained with informed, voluntary consent by the donor.

“Embryonic stem cells will always have a fundamental role in stem cell research and development of novel therapies for a wide range of diseases,” says Dan Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the University’s Stem Cell Institute. These cells remain the gold standard by which to compare other stem cell populations. Even with the advent of new technologies, like iPS cells that can be created from skin, blood, or other cells in the body, he emphasizes that for the best possible science to evolve, “we need to be able to use all available tools.”

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New biosciences building will bring medical experts together to accelerate advances

2008-10-01T19:58:56Z

Sometimes the beginning of a breakthrough happens on a short walk down the hall to a colleague’s office. For ataxia researchers and other neuroscientists at the University of Minnesota‚ whose offices may be scattered in buildings across campus‚ bouncing ideas off of one another in person is not always so easy.

That will be changing soon‚ thanks to the 2006 Minnesota State Legislature’s decision to fund the 100‚000-plus-square-foot Medical Biosciences Building (MBB)‚ which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2009.

Most of the MBB will be devoted to the neurosciences and will include space for the N. Bud Grossman Center for Memory Research and Care. The new building will house existing programs in neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases such as ataxia‚ muscular dystrophy‚ Parkinson’s‚ and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). The MBB also will house immunology research and be linked by skyway to the University’s internationally renowned Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR).

Lead ataxia researcher Harry Orr, Ph.D., says the new building will create three key opportunities for ataxia investigators and other neuroscientists. “It will allow us to recruit new faculty in this area‚ it will allow us to develop and access state-of-the-art core facilities‚ and it will allow ataxia researchers and other neuro-scientists to be in close proximity to one another‚ which will synergize our research‚” he says.

Assistant professor of laboratory medicine and pathology Michael Koob, Ph.D., will soon join his neuroscience colleagues in the new space but currently is physically separated from them.

“It has really cut down on the spontaneous interactions that would occur on a daily basis between researchers who share lab space‚” Koob says.

“I expect that coming together as a research community with shared interests and research goals will result in a huge increase in the number of collaborative projects our group is able to pursue.”

Becoming one of the top public research institutions in the nation remains an important initiative for the University. The 2008 state Legislature propelled the University a giant step forward when it approved funding for four additional state-of-the-art research buildings. The five-year project‚ backed by university-sold bonds‚ will cost $292 million and will provide additional space for the CMRR and research in infectious disease‚ cancer‚ and heart disease.

Neuromuscular disease researcher John Day, M.D., Ph.D., believes that the new space will be a valuable selling point for the 15 new neuroscience investigators the University is hoping to recruit.

“One of the things a candidate may ask is‚ ‘Do you have the space to do all the things you want me to do?’ And we can honestly say yes‚” says Day‚ a professor of neurology and director of the University’s Paul and Sheila Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Center. “Top-notch investigators will be able to come in and right away have the physical resources they need to contribute‚ and that can give us the edge we need to maintain our leadership in biomedical sciences research.”

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U receives funding for biomedical research buildings

2008-04-01T21:22:42Z

Thanks to bipartisan support from the state legislature and Governor Tim Pawlenty, the University of Minnesota will construct four state-of-the-art research buildings as part of the Minnesota Biomedical Research Program. The five-year project, backed by university-sold bonds, will cost $292 million. The state will help repay 75 percent of those bonds, about $219 million. The remainder will come from philanthropy and other sources.

The new biomedical sciences buildings will provide high-tech space for faculty to conduct interdisciplinary research in areas such as heart disease; Alzheimer’s disease; cancer of the breast, lung, colon, and prostate; brain and nerve disorders; and infectious diseases.

“Our biomedical research program will provide reliable, long-term funding for essential research infrastructure that will advance Minnesota’s global economic leadership and contribute to our quality of life for generations to come,” says University President Robert Bruininks, Ph.D. “This investment in infrastructure builds on a decade of investments totaling almost $500 million and will help Minnesota maintain a leadership position in this industry.”

The four new buildings, which will house approximately 120 faculty researchers, 480 research assistants, and additional staff, will attract an estimated $100 million in new research dollars annually to the state.

Along with the Medical Bioscience Building, funded by the 2006 legislature and scheduled to be occupied by fall 2009, the McGuire Translational Research Facility, which opened in 2005, and the Lions Research Building, these four new buildings will be part of a biomedical sciences research park located on the north side of the TCF Bank Stadium, now under construction. The new East Gateway district of campus is the largest University expansion since the West Bank was developed.

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Building momentum

2006-10-01T15:46:08Z

Brick by brick, the U is moving toward its goal of becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and things are hopping at the McGuire Translational Research Facility.

In one of the 30 offices lining the south side of the four-story building, a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine is tapping intently at a keyboard. Just down the hall, through doors that open to a long, day-lit laboratory, a student pipettes liquid into a rack full of tubes, preparing to grow plasmids as part of a study on developing gene therapies for brain cancer. At a table looking out over the four-story atrium, three graduate students—perhaps from the Stem Cell Institute or the orphan drug program—eat late lunches from plastic containers. Upstairs and down, dozens of others are working on solutions to a spectrum of health problems: TB, HIV, malaria, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury.

This 96,000-square-foot facility, which opened in June 2005 just north of the site of the future Gopher football stadium, is the latest addition to what is becoming a major focal point for biomedical research at the University of Minnesota. By 2009 it will be joined by another translational research building. And there are hopes for several more facilities to provide much-needed space to retain and attract top-ranked scientists as the University works to become one of the top three public research universities in the world.

“The faculties in the six schools of the Academic Health Center are remarkably productive and innovative in their research, which has enabled us to attract additional colleagues and students to the University,” says Frank Cerra, M.D., senior vice president for health sciences. “These new facilities are necessary to allow for growth in the productivity of our neuroscientists; growth in cardiovascular, infectious disease, and immunology research; as well as additional breakthroughs in cancer research. Successful recruitment of new faculty, and the fellows and researchers they bring with them, is directly tied to the facilities available to provide them work space.”

Growing room

This emerging biomedical research district got its start about a decade ago with a search for space for some really big, really strong magnets—the brawn behind two sophisticated technologies—magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy—that allow scientists to visualize the interior of the human body. In 1998, the magnets and the researchers who use them to perform groundbreaking studies in brain mapping and cancer detection moved into a new building: the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, on the north-eastern edge of the East Bank campus. A short shuttle ride from the cluster of biomedical buildings near the Mississippi River, the new site was accessible to Academic Health Center faculty, yet had plenty of growing room.

The new CMRR joined the Lions Research Building, which provides laboratory space for the Departments of Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, and Neurosurgery and supports research in areas including immunology, optic nerve rescue, and macular degeneration.

A research leap

As construction moved forward in this nascent research park, a building project of another sort was also under way—one that would reverberate throughout the nation’s, and the University’s, biomedical research community: the construction of a map of the human genome. Both the process and the product of the U.S. Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2003, opened the door to entirely new ways of answering questions. And—science being science—to entirely new ways of asking them, too.

Researchers who could make the most of the new information, techniques, and technologies that emerged were in high demand. Institutions that could provide the sophisticated facilities these researchers needed were able to attract them. And once they did, they found it easier to attract their colleagues, too, creating clusters of experts with the potential to generate new knowledge and new approaches to preventing, treating, and curing diseases.

Know-how

With its decades-long history of pioneering biomedical research, the University of Minnesota had the know-how to be a leader in this emerging environment.

And it was motivated. World-class researchers attract top students and grants, bolstering reputation and productivity. They generate research-based businesses—the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that 38.1 jobs are created for every $1 million in university research carried out in Minnesota. And they develop life-saving therapies and technologies for the surrounding community and region.

Using these strengths as a foundation, the University set out to develop the state-of-the-art research facilities needed to attract and retain leaders in biomedical research. And it’s working, says Charles Moldow, M.D., associate dean for research in the Medical School. Leaders lured here by the new McGuire TRF, says Moldow, include Mark Schleiss, M.D., an internationally recognized expert in cytomegalovirus, and Meri Firpo, Ph.D., a renowned stem cell researcher from California working on treatments for diabetes.

“That could not have happened without space,” Moldow says.

Need for infrastructure

When the University set its sights last year on becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world, it was clear that biomedical research would be a big part of the picture. That meant a need for even more sophisticated lab space to retain the leading researchers already here and to bring in the hundreds more needed.

“Under President Bruininks’s strategic positioning initiative, we need to recruit a large number of new faculty,” says Medical School Dean Deborah Powell, M.D. And that, Powell says, means investing in them. “Faculty need infrastructure—buildings and equipment and support for their lab programs—to get their programs established here.”

Last spring, the Minnesota legislature got a start on meeting those needs when it approved $40 million in state funding to help pay two-thirds of the cost for a new medical biosciences building, to be constructed adjacent to the McGuire TRF. Slated to open in 2009, the facility will add some 105,000 square feet of translational research space, conference rooms, and offices for up to 40 researchers and their staff, and is expected to bring in $15 million to $20 million per year in research funding.

Need for innovation

As helpful as the new building will be, it clearly can’t accommodate the 200 new faculty and 600 new research support staff needed to keep Minnesota a world player in such key research areas as cancer, neuroscience, and infectious disease. University planners estimate that an expansion of that magnitude will take at least four more buildings.

And that, says Richard Pfutzenreuter, University vice president and chief financial officer, will take innovation. Normally, major capital projects are funded by the legislature one by one. But because of the high cost of biomedical research facilities—$60 million-plus compared with $5 million for typical bonding projects—and the
need to define future infrastructure for prospective faculty, that approach doesn’t work so well in this instance, Pfutzenreuter says.

“To invest in biomedical sciences, we’ve got to hire faculty, but you can’t really begin to recruit and hire those people if you don’t have a building for them to move into. It’s kind of a Catch-22—you wait because you’re not sure if you have a building, and then you’re always behind, he says. “In considering our aspiration to be one of the top three public research universities, the question I wrestled with is, Is that going to take 25 or 30 years because of process at the Capitol? How can we think differently?”

‘Come to Minnesota’

Pfutzenreuter’s answer, presented by the University last year to the Minnesota legislature, was a request to create a Minnesota Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority. This nine-member state authority would have been authorized to allocate $330 million in state bonding toward building five new biomedical research facilities over the next 10 years, each holding 40 faculty members and their laboratory staff.

“[This] provides us with the ability to go to important faculty around the country and say, ‘Come to Minnesota. Look, we have this facility,’” Pfutzenreuter says.

The proposal received strong support, says Marty McDonough, assistant director of state relations for the University, but failed to survive the intense days at the end of the legislative session. Undaunted, the University plans to bring the proposal back to the legislature next year. The 2007 proposal asks for $279 million in state bonding for four buildings, recognizing the first building as a down payment on the facilities investment. The University would then seek another $31 million in private donations to cover the total cost of construction.

If it passes muster, Powell says, the proposal could make a huge difference in the University’s ability to recruit the researchers it needs to reach its top-three goal.

With groundbreaking for the new building slated for early 2007, Powell is focused on the future: “If we get the other four there, we will have a true research complex, which will be wonderful for scientific interactions.”

By Mary Hoff

Other States’ Investments

Recognizing the value of a strong biomedical research industry—for everything from reputation to health care quality to economic vitality—other states are also kicking into high gear, making massive investments in infrastructure to create environments that can attract and retain top researchers.

Arizona, for instance, authorized debt to fund $440 million in new research facilities. Wisconsin’s governor committed $570 million to biomedical research facilities. California has committed to providing $3 billion toward stem cell research. The University of Texas very recently announced a $2.5 billion investment in science, technology, engineering, and health, most of which is dedicated to capital improvements.

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Making memories at alumni reunion weekend 2006

2006-10-01T15:20:52Z

More than 400 University of Minnesota Medical School alumni and their guests returned to campus last spring to reconnect with classmates.

Reunion Weekend 2006 began on May 19 for eight celebrating classes between 1946 and 1996 with updates on medical education and research at the University. Alumni also toured the cutting-edge McGuire Translational Research Facility and attended the Alumni Recognition Banquet, which honored distinguished members of the University community.

To wrap up the weekend, each reunion class met for an individual class dinner on May 20.

“Everything was great—the impressive facilities, the wonderful food, and especially the socializing with fellow graduates and their spouses,” says John E. Quast, M.D., Class of 1956. “It was a perfect way to celebrate our special 50th reunion.”

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Biomedical Discovery District | Minnesota Medical Foundation

U breaks ground on a new campus landmark

Web Extras

Construction under way on new research building

Watch the progress

A better future in sight for kids

Minnesota Lions make a $3M pledge to help prevent blindness in infants and children

The Lions’ legacy

Staying power

Longtime health sciences leader Frank Cerra, M.D., reflects on his 30-year career at the U

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Frank B. Cerra, M.D.

Professional background

Medical Biosciences Building named in honor of Wallins, longtime U supporters

New cancer and heart research building will foster collaboration

Minnesota Lions pledge $3M to prevent blindness in infants and children, mark 50-year partnership with the U

Medical Biosciences Building named for Win and Maxine Wallin

New Medical Biosciences Building brings experts together to accelerate research

In the news

Great expectations

The potential to transform medicine looms large as the Stem Cell Institute embarks on its second decade of discovery

Unprecedented opportunity

A powerful weapon

Damage repair

An eye to the future

Web Extras

Revised stem cell policies open new doors

New biosciences building will bring medical experts together to accelerate advances

U receives funding for biomedical research buildings

Building momentum

Brick by brick, the U is moving toward its goal of becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world

Growing room

A research leap

Know-how

Need for infrastructure

Need for innovation

‘Come to Minnesota’

Related links

Other States’ Investments

Making memories at alumni reunion weekend 2006