Nature News Blog

10 Apr 2014 | 22:47 BST | Posted by Sara Reardon | Category: stem cells

Stem-cell biologist Mahendra Rao, who resigned last week as director of the US National Institutes of Healths Center for Regenerative Medicine (CRM), has a new job. On April 9, he was appointed vice-president for regenerative medicine at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), a non-profit organization that funds embryonic stem cell research.

Rao left the National Institutes of Healthabruptly on 28 March, apparently due to disagreements about the number of clinical trials of stem cell therapies that NIHs intramural CRM programme would conduct. CRM was established in 2010 to shepherd therapies using iPS cells adult cells that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic state into clinical translation. One of CRMs potential therapies, which will use iPS cells to treat macular degeneration of the retina, will continue moving toward clinical trials at the NIH, although several others were not funded. NIH officials say that CRM will not continue in its current direction, but the fate of the centers remaining budget and resources is undecided.

Rao says that he wants to move more iPS cell therapies toward trials than NIH had been willing to do. He has already joined the advisory boards of several stem cell therapy companies: Q Therapeutics, a Salt Lake City-based neural stem cell company he co-founded, as well as Cesca Therapeutics formerly known as ThermoGenesis of Rancho Cordova, California, and Stemedica of San Diego, both of which are developing cell-based therapies for cardiac and vascular disorders.

Rao says that his initial focus at NYSCF will be developing iPS cell lines for screening, and formulating a process for making clinical grade cell lines from a patients own cells.

Read the original:
Former NIH stem-cell chief joins New York foundation