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Stem cell center to advance regenerative medicine, cancer research
The inception of the Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Center will expand stem cell research initiatives across a wide spectrum of disciplines, say the center's founders. Referred to as the STaR Center, the new interdisciplinary center incorporates existing personnel and resources at Baylor College of Medicine while merging expertise in basic and clinical sciences. Its creation has the potential to enable more collaboration with other institutions and give the College greater leverage recruiting new faculty members and attracting more postdoctoral scientists in stem cell research, said Margaret Goodell, Ph.D., director of the center. "It is important to bring together the existing research on stem cells at BCM to foster collaborations and interactions that will strengthen the work that we already do," said Goodell, also a member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy as well as the departments of pediatrics, molecular and human genetics and immunology. "We also want to recruit more people to work on stem cells at Baylor." Video comment The center comprises roughly 30 members overall belonging to more than a dozen departments at BCM, including molecular and cellular biology, pediatrics, medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pathology. Goodell and her staff have worked with stem cell groups at Rice University, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the past and expect to collaborate more in the future. Already involved in stem cell work"A number of faculty members at BCM don't just have a casual interest in stem cells – they already have a grant in the area or a paper that is focused on stem cells in their particular tissue of interest," said Goodell. "They really run the gamut. People are interested in skin stem cells, mammary gland stem cells, breast cancer stem cells and hepatic stem cells." The center focuses on three major areas of stem cell research: adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and cancer stem cells. While embryonic stem cells capture most of the public's attention, the potential benefits of cancer stem cells are just as promising. "Cancer relapse may be caused by a stem cell-like cell that is maintained even after treatment with chemotherapy and other agents," said Goodell. "If we can find ways to target that cancer stem cell, then we might truly be able to eliminate cancer. There are investigators at Baylor who are very interested in that, particularly with regard to breast cancer, and we would like to expand that area." Video comment Various areas of expertise
Goodell specializes in adult stem cells, specifically hematopoietic stem cells, which reside in bone marrow and give rise to new bloods cells over the course of a person's lifetime. Fellow founder Karen Hirschi, Ph.D., deputy director of STaR and a member of the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, focuses on vascular development and regeneration. "My lab studies both the embryo and the adult vascular system to determine which cells in adult tissue contribute to the formation of new vessels when a tissue is damaged during the progression of pathology," said Hirschi. "We want to use information from developmental systems to drive new blood vessel formation, so we are looking at the problem on both ends – trying to understand how it normally happens in the developing embryo and then trying to recapitulate it in an adult." Video comment
Thomas Zwaka, M.D., Ph.D., also one of the center's founders and an assistant professor in the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and departments of molecular and cell biology at BCM, focuses on embryonic stem cells. "Because it can differentiate into any kind of cell in the human body, an embryonic stem cell serves as a fantastic toolbox," said Zwaka. "Many diseases are caused by the degeneration of a particular cell type, so the hope is to be able to use embryonic stem cells to generate new tissues and use them in a completely new way to treat disease." Video comment
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