Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Millipore, HSCI give researcher Bhatia a $100K stem cell grant

By Mass High Tech Staff

Millipore Corp., a Billerica-based provider of tools and services for life sciences research and manufacturing, reports it has awarded a $100,000 grant to stem cell researcher Sangeeta Bhatia from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The grant will support Bhatia in her efforts to find cures for deadly diseases such as cancer, she said in a statement. In addition to her stem cell research at Brigham and Women’s, Bhatia is a professor of health sciences and technology, electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, according to Millipore.

Millipore (NYSE: MIL) said Bhatia is the first grant recipient in a program formed in partnership with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, in which Millipore committed $500,000 for biomedical research and the institute agreed to provide lists of grant candidates. The program is expected to award the funds annually in $100,000 grants. Millipore also gave a $150,000 grant to a stem cell scientist at the Scripps Research Institute, of California, in June.

The grants follow efforts by Millipore to expand its stem cell business, which provides academic scientists and life sciences companies with research materials to perform experiments and to discover new drugs, company officials say. Its stem cell business is based in California.

With 6,000 employees worldwide, Millipore reported 2007 net income of $136 million on revenue of $1.5 billion.