NIH Grant Awarded to Support Research on Stem Cells for Treating Stroke

Researchers at the Stem Cell Institute were awarded an NIH grant In September to begin conducting pre-clinical studies on the safety and efficacy of using stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood for treating ischemic brain injury. Walter Low, Ph.D., and Andrew Grande, M.D. received the first year installment of a three year grant that will total $4.2 million to perform studies that will generate data for submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to apply for an investigational new drug (IND) application for approval to conduct a Phase I clinical trial on patients with ischemic stroke. Drs. Low and Grande are also faculty in the Department of Neurosurgery and will serve as co-principals investigators on the project. The stem cell technology underlying this project has been licensed from the University of Minnesota to Saneron CCEL, a biotechnology company based in Tampa, Florida.