Penn Scientists Receive $16.7M NationaI Heart Lung Blood Institute Award for Stem Cell Research
October 7, 2009
Two Penn researchers have been awarded $16.7 million for collaborative stem cell research projects.
Edward Morrisey, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology and Scientific Director of the Penn Institute for Regenerative Medicine and
Mortimer Poncz, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
received the funding from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute (NHLBI) as part of a $170 million effort to create the
NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium,
which will bring together "hubs" of investigators from the heart, lung, blood, and technology research fields.
Poncz and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle (Dr. Beverly Torok-Storb, PhD) will study the specialization of blood-forming cell lines,
develop molecular interventions that will drive the formation of blood cells toward desired lines, and establish new, functional platelets that potentially may be used for the targeted delivery of bioactive proteins.
Morrisey and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Dr. Irwin Bernstein, MD) endeavor to determine how certain signaling pathways -
ordered sequences of biochemical reactions inside cells - affect cardiac and blood-forming cell development and cardiac regeneration and repair.
The team will also study whether these pathways may be harnessed for therapeutic applications.
