Bioengineer Shyni Varghese Awarded $3.2 Million Grant for Stem Cell Research
San Diego, CA, August 18, 2008 -- Bioengineering Professor Shyni Varghese is one of five UC San Diego researchers and physicians awarded New Faculty grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The new awards, announced today, add $11.5 million to the more than $20 million in funding that researchers at UC San Diego have received from CIRM.
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Varghese’s $2.3M grant will enable her to explore embryonic stem cell (ESC)-based transplantation therapy for treating muscle wasting.
“These grants demonstrate CIRM’s strong commitment to the dynamic and innovative careers of these young faculty members,” said Larry Goldstein, Ph.D., director of UC San Diego’s stem cell program. “This investment in the future of the next generation of ‘big thinkers’ is especially critical in an atmosphere of tight funding, allowing institutions like UC San Diego to mount broad programs that will improve health outcomes for Californians and patients around the world.”
Varghese is the faculty mentor of a Calit2 Undergraduate Research Scholar this summer. Han-liang Lim is a senior in bioengineering. According to his project proposal, Lim's research in Varghese's lab is focused on "the development of a multifunctional oscillating hydrogel device that undergoes reversible, time-dependent and sinusoidal volume/mechanical changes in response to temperature perturbations. These oscillating hydrogels will then be employed in regulating musculoskeletal differentiation of stem cells in the context of regenerative medicine."
Varghese will focus on the most common form of muscle wasting, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which is characterized by progressive skeletal muscle degeneration in young children. She plans to optimize the micro-environmental factors that contribute to differentiation in the embryonic stem cells, then engineer a population of clinically viable ESC-derived muscle progenitor cells.
“We will investigate differentiation of our embryonic stem cells in a three-dimensional environment, in order to derive progenitor cells that can be used to test therapies for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy using animal models,” said Varghese. Successful completion of this study could offer broad applicability of stem cell-based therapies for treating various types of muscle-wasting diseases.
The five UC San Diego researchers represent diversity in background and research focus, which ranges from maternal and infant health to cancer and skin disease. They are among the 12 scientists and 11 physician scientists in California that will receive New Faculty awards, which fund promising M.D. and Ph.D. scientists in the critical early stages of their careers as independent investigators. A total of $59 million in funding for 23 researchers was approved at today’s meeting of 29-member Independent Citizens Oversight Committee (ICOC).
The grantees were chosen from 55 applications received by CIRM from 32 institutions.
Media Contacts
Daniel Kane, Jacobs School of Engineering, 858-534-3262, dbkane@ucsd.edu
Related Links
2008 Calit2 Undergraduate Scholars
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Jacobs School of Engineering