The Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee (SCRAC) has awarded $5.7 million in grants to researchers at the University of Connecticut and the UConn Health Center to study human embryonic stem cell research, Mass High Tech reports.
Meanwhile, Yale University received $3.36 million in stem cell grants, while Wesleyan University took home about $750,000, sources said.
Part of the UConn Health Center, new startup Chondrogenics Inc. also took in $1.29 million from SCRAC, which will aid the company in its preclinical testing of chondrogenic cells, taken from human embryonic stem cells, for use in joint cartilage repair.
The SCRAC grants were given to nine projects at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, Conn., while one project at the university’s main campus in Storrs, Conn., received funding. The committee received a total of 79 grant requests for $49 million in awards.
In addition to Chrondrogenics, some of the awards included:
— $1.29 million – Urs Boelsterli of the School of Pharmacy, Dr. Theodore Rasmussen and Dr. Winfried Krueger of the Center for Regenerative Biology, to study cellular and molecular mechanisms of drug-induced liver injury
— $750,000 – Dr. Gordon Carmichael, UConn professor in the department of genetics and developmental biology, to research Cytoplasmic dsRNA response in human embryonic stem cells
— $650,000 – Hicham Drissi, associate professor of orthopedics, to develop a treatment of articular cartilage damage using human ESC-derived chondrocytes
— $570,000 – Dr. David Han, of the UConn Center for Vascular Biology, to study phosphorylation dynamics of puripotent stem cells
— $200,0000 each – Drs. Jonathan Covault, Xin-Ming Ma, Alissa Resch and Kristen Martins-Taylor, all of the UConn Health Center to advance stem cell biology in the state
In June 2010, the SCRAC awarded $9.8 million total in research grants to scientists at the University of Connecticut and Yale University.
