Cellular Dynamics receives $16 million research grant

MILWAUKEE - A Madison company said Thursday it has been awarded $16 million to manufacture stem cell lines for research.

Cellular Dynamics International Inc. will receive the grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which was established with a $3 billion fund approved by taxpayers in California to accelerate stem cell research in that state.

Cellular Dynamics was awarded $16 million to create three stem cell lines -- called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs -- that can be used for research on Alzheimer's disease, autism spectrum disorders, liver diseases, cardiovascular diseases and many other ailments.

According to the National Institutes of Health, iPSCs -- although needing additional research -- already are useful tools for drug development and modeling of diseases, and scientists hope to use them in transplantation medicine.

The institute also awarded almost $10 million to Coriell Institute for Medical Research, of Camden, N.J., to set up and "biobank" the iPSC lines.

"The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine is a world leader in funding stem cell research," Bob Palay, chairman and chief executive of Cellular Dynamics, said in a statement. "Their human iPSC banking initiative will create the world's largest human iPSC bank."

Cellular Dynamics was founded in 2004 by James Thomson, a pioneer in human pluripotent stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ___

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Cellular Dynamics receives $16 million research grant