State Budget Cuts Trim Funds for Stem Cell Research - How Investigators Are Faring

Neurology Today
15 October 2009; Volume 9(20); pp 1,10

FALLIK, DAWN

As state budgets are cut due to budgetary pressures, so too are funds for stem cell programs.

Last year, Adam Puche, PhD, an associate professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, received $100,000 to study stem cell migration in the brain. He and co-investigators wanted to determine if they could get stem cells to survive, morph into olfactory cells, and stay in one place. The project, funded by the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund, showed progress. But this year, the Maryland grant was not renewed, and the investigators are not sure about their source for funding once the grant ends in 2010.

As part of his project, Dr. Puche is researching the mechanisms underlying cell migration from the subventricular zone of the postnatal and adult forebrain areas. Most of the cells in this area migrate along the rostral extension into the olfactory bulb, where they migrate radially and assume the morphology of interneurons.

We'll use the data we obtained from what Maryland has provided and we'll try to get funding from a federal grant or a foundation, said Dr. Puche. Meanwhile, he said he feels lucky for now; the money carried over through the current year and the person overseeing the research received a fellowship so the project can continue during the lag time. The bang for the buck can be high for the state.

Figure. TWELVE STATES have earmarked funds to support stem cell research.Istockphoto

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The Stem Cell Research Fund, which was established by the Maryland State General Assembly in 2006, allocates funds through its general budget. To date, more than $56 million and 141 research grants have been funded in the first three years.

In fiscal year 2008, the budget was $23 million, but that dropped to $18 million in fiscal year 2009. It is budgeted for $12.4 million for this fiscal year, said Dan Gincel, director of the fund. The cuts are a direct result of the economy - because the money is part of the general budget and the state as a whole has less money, the funds are vulnerable.

Although the fund has less money now than when it first began, Gincel said the situation is made even harder by the increasing number of applications received.

The quality of the applications has really improved, and there are so many more applications that we wish we could have funded, said Gincel. If we had more money, we would have. I'm hoping that in the future, applicants will come back and reapply.

Maryland is one of 12 states that have allocated funds for stem cell research. But as the economy continues to struggle, states are struggling to keep the money stream steady, particularly because support for stem cell research has expanded under the current administration. It's particularly a problem because states often support pilot programs, whereas federal grants usually require more advanced findings.

Marc Lalande, PhD, director of the University of Connecticut Stem Cell Institute and chairman of the department of genetics and developmental biology, specializes in Angelman syndrome, a neurogenetic disorder characterized by mental retardation, ataxic gait with jerky arm movements, and seizures. The syndrome is caused by the absence of a normal maternal copy of the gene encoding ubiquitin protein ligase E3A (UBE3A).

Dr. Lalande and colleagues reprogrammed dermal fibroblasts from Angelman syndrome patients into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). The iPS cells are used to generate human Angelman syndrome neurons. Using these patient-specific fibroblasts and neurons, they are modeling the effects of specific human gene defects in vitro and studying how they influence genomic imprinting and UBE3A expression.

The Connecticut General Assembly established the grants program for stem cell research in 2005, appropriating $20 million to support embryonic and human adult stem cell research through June 30, 2007. For each fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, through June 30, 2015, the legislation allocates an additional $10 million dollars from the Connecticut Tobacco Settlement Fund to support additional research. To date, the state is funding 68 investigators from schools across the state, including the University of Connecticut, Wesleyan, and Yale.

Figure. DR. MARK LALANDE: We're proceeding as if the money is there.

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Scientists are waiting for the next round of grants to be approved. The deadline for the 2010 grant competition is Dec. 1.

We're proceeding as if the money is there, said Dr. Lalande, adding that although the tobacco money is used to support the fund, lawmakers must approve it every year. We're very concerned, he said, adding that he was optimistic that the funds would be renewed.

We announced in the winter that we isolated the first two human embryonic lines in the state of Connecticut, he said, so we're making progress.

Unlike the Maryland program, which does not have a central brick and mortar building, the University of Connecticut is creating a Stem Cell Core building on campus to house 150 faculty and researchers, which should be completed in a year, Dr. Lalande said.

The funding in Connecticut has been stable so far. Part of the reason we're not having problems is that, compared to other states, Connecticut's program does not involve a huge amount of money, Dr. Lalande said. The state has been very good about being transparent about the process and so people know what's going on.

In California, $3 billion was funded to create the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in 2004 to be spent over the course of a decade. From that money 12 facilities were planned across the state's academic centers for stem cell research, and nine of them are on schedule, said Don Gibbons, the chief spokesperson for the CIRM, based in San Francisco.

The remaining three were delayed because of financial issues, but two, the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego and a bioscience building at UC-Santa Cruz, are back on track, said Gibbons. The only one still in limbo is at the Buck Institute for Age Research, because they could not match the $20.5 million grant from CIRM. The institute is now seeking a tax-exempt bond.

There will be a lot of recruits to fill these buildings and people are ready to move in once they're built, said Gibbons. The problem is that the entire University of California system is on a freeze, so they can't hire to fill those openings once people move. But I don't suspect that freeze will go on for long.

Gibbons said that at the CIRM board meeting in August, the officers passed a new set of grants aimed toward recruitment. The new grants will offer five-year commitments to pay 90 percent of their salary, he said.

Even non-state programs are struggling with recruitment. At the University of Pennsylvania, the school started the Institute of Regenerative Medicine (IRM) in 2007 with $3.9 million in tobacco money.

The school's researchers follow the federal guidelines regarding stem cell research, which previously meant using the existing stem cell lines permitted by then-President Bush - those created before Aug. 9, 2001. But Steven Fluharty, PhD, vice provost for research and professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, said researchers hope they will be able to use newly created NIH lines as well.

We had hoped to hire 15, he says. We've hired three faculty to support the institute, which is a pretty good number.

The university is building a new facility for the IRM, scheduled to open in late 2010, and hopefully that will make space and spur new hires, he said. Dr. Fluharty hopes to fill all 15 positions in the next three to five years.

Despite the financial downturn, Dr. Puche, in Maryland, remains optimistic about the role of stem cell funding in the state.

Figure. DAN GINCEL: The quality of the applications has really improved, and there are so many more applications that we wish we could have funded. If we had more money, we would have. I'm hoping that in the future, applicants will come back and reapply.

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Maryland has done quite well in preserving any funding at all in this program, given that the state is in a fiscal crisis, he said. Clearly we'd all like it to be greater, but being able to preserve even part of the program is critical because science is a multi-year investment.

It's slow, it's tedious, it can be frustrating - you never know when a breakthrough will be made, he continued. So being able to preserve half is much better than disappearing entirely and then having to start all over again in two years time.