Thursday, September 4, 2008

WPI wins $900K NIH stem cell grant

By Mass High Tech Staff

A research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has received a three-year, $900,000 award from the National Institutes of Health for a project aimed at transforming adult skin cells into stem-like cells, according to the school.

The research could result in a relatively simple method for replacing tissue lost to injury, growing new organs and curing degenerative diseases like diabetes and Parkinson’s, WPI said.

The WPI research is an outgrowth of a two-year Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project studying ways to enable mammals — including humans — to regenerate tissue in digits and limbs lost to traumatic injury.

Tanja Dominko, associate professor in WPI’s department of biology and biotechnology, is the principal investigator on the project. Dominko also oversaw the work funded by DARPA as president of the Worcester biomedical company CellThera, which was a member of a multi-institution team led by researchers at Tulane University. In 2006, CellThera signed an agreement with WPI to collaborate on the DARPA project.

The grant is one of 38 awarded by the NIH through its Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration (EUREKA) program, which was created to fund innovative research projects. The grants are intended to help investigators test novel or unconventional hypotheses, or tackle major methodological or technical challenges.

Founded in 1865, WPI’s 18 academic departments offer more than 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, management, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts.