Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Training Grant at UCSD III

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Grant Award Details

Grant Type:

Research Training Grant

Grant Number:

EDUC4-12804

Investigator(s):

Name:

Professor Alysson R Muotri

Institution:

University of California, San Diego

Type:

Award Value:

$5,366,188

Status:

Active

Progress Reports

Reporting Period:

Year 1

The CIRM Training Grant at UC San Diego is a collaboration spanning nearly every department at the UC San Diego campus, as well as our partners at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology and the Salk Institute for Biomedical Sciences. Upon notice of award, a multidisciplinary Steering Committee developed a plan to ensure a diverse, scientific trainee cohort at our campus. The call for abstracts was drafted and circulated to both academic departments and advocacy organizations around the San Diego Research Mesa in December 2021. Our call drew in 70 total abstracts for 12 fellowship spots, creating a very competitive selection process. Five graduate students, five postdoctoral fellows and two clinical fellows were ultimately selected by the steering committee for the first year. The awarded fellows came from a variety of departments at UC San Diego, including Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Neurosciences, Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Pathology and Psychiatry. A fellowship was also awarded to the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology. The first year cohort has already authored six high impact publications and presented their work all across California. Several fellows attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA on June 15, 2022 and three fellows had abstracts selected for poster presentations. A graduate level class originally created for the first iteration of the CIRM Training Grant, CMM 250, was attended by all UC San Diego fellows in order to learn the cutting edge work being done by stem cell scientists in California. UCSD CIRM fellows actively participate in a program of special lab courses, didactic courses, research seminars, and journal clubs to present findings, build relationships, hone professionalism, and develop interdisciplinary contacts. A hands-on, stem cell methods class for multiple training levels will be offered semi-annually to CIRM Trainees free of charge, which was developed by the UCSD Stem Cell Program and a local industry partner. The UC San Diego Training Grant steering committee has encouraged extensive collaboration with the two additional CIRM Training Grants awarded in San Diego; housed at Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Sanford Burnham Prebys. Together, the three programs are jointly hosting a retreat at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, which is a CIRM Major Facility and the base of operations for the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program. Fellows who are further in their research careers are selected to present twenty minute talks and all non-speaking trainees participate in the poster session at the end of the day. The retreat is an excellent venue to foster collaborations between the institutions and give valuable presentation experience to the mentees. The Sanford Burnham and Scripps Research trainees both fully participate in CMM 250, attend the hands on stem cell training and present posters at the Sanford Stem Cell Symposium. The new CIRM Training Grant cohort joins an extremely successful group of past trainees who have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry and the clinic.

Reporting Period:

Year 2

The CIRM Training Grant at UC San Diego is a collaboration spanning nearly every department at the UC San Diego campus, as well as our partners at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology and the Salk Institute for Biomedical Sciences. Upon notice of award, a multidisciplinary Steering Committee developed a plan to ensure a diverse, scientific trainee cohort at our campus. The call for abstracts was drafted and circulated to both academic departments and advocacy organizations around the San Diego Research Mesa in December 2021. Our call drew in 70 total abstracts for 12 fellowship spots, creating a very competitive selection process. Five graduate students, five postdoctoral fellows and two clinical fellows were ultimately selected by the steering committee for the first year. The awarded fellows came from a variety of departments at UC San Diego, including Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Neurosciences, Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Pathology and Psychiatry. A fellowship was also awarded to the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology. The first year cohort has already authored six high impact publications and presented their work all across California. Our entire cohort of fellows attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Annual Meeting in Boston, MA on June 14, 2023 and eleven fellows had abstracts selected for poster presentations. A graduate level class originally created for the first iteration of the CIRM Training Grant, CMM 250, was attended by all UC San Diego fellows in order to learn the cutting edge work being done by stem cell scientists in California. UCSD CIRM fellows actively participate in a program of special lab courses, didactic courses, research seminars, and journal clubs to present findings, build relationships, hone professionalism, and develop interdisciplinary contacts. A hands-on, stem cell methods class for multiple training levels will be offered semi-annually to CIRM Trainees free of charge, which was developed by the UCSD Stem Cell Program and a local industry partner. The UC San Diego Training Grant steering committee has encouraged extensive collaboration with the two additional CIRM Training Grants awarded in San Diego; housed at Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Sanford Burnham Prebys. Together, the three programs are jointly hosting a retreat at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, which is a CIRM Major Facility and the base of operations for the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program. Fellows who are further in their research careers are selected to present twenty minute talks and all non-speaking trainees participate in the poster session at the end of the day. The retreat is an excellent venue to foster collaborations between the institutions and give valuable presentation experience to the mentees. The Sanford Burnham and Scripps Research trainees both fully participate in CMM 250, attend the hands on stem cell training and present posters at the Sanford Stem Cell Symposium. The retreat in December 2022 was held at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine and organized by UC San Diego, the second year retreat will be hosted by Sanford Burnham Prebys on January 17, 2024 and the third year retreat will be hosted by the Scripps Research Institute before rotating back to UC San Diego.

Grant Application Details

Application Title:

Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Training Grant at UCSD III

Statement of Benefit to California:

This training opportunity will bring the following benefits to California: 1-Training the next generation of stem cell biologists. The strength of our commitment to research training, the value of our experience, and the positive effect of strong mentoring is manifest in the success of our past group of CIRM trainees, who have published an outstanding volume of high-impact papers in the field, gaining excellent careers in industry, clinical endeavors, and academia, with many becoming faculty members themselves, thus extending the impact of the training program to new generations of scientists. Moreover, many of these past trainees have also received other prestigious prizes, awards, and fellowships, including the Hertzberg-Schecter Prize for Stem Cell Research, the Product Development Breakthrough Award, the Larry Hillblon Foundation fellowship, NIH K99/R00s, Ruth L. Krischetein fellowship, best dissertation thesis, best poster in meetings, etc. We have a total of 87 past CIRM trainees from 49 different UCSD mentors. Of all trainees, 57% of these were women, and 81% continue researching in the USA (including 72% in California). 2-Health and Economic Benefits. The work from our CIRM trainees has led to new treatment and several ongoing clinical trials (including spinal cord injury, different types of cancer, Alzheimer's Disease). Moreover, the work from our trainees becomes inventions and patents, many being licensed by our faculty-based spin-offs based in California. 3-Public communication and outreach. Californians will also benefit from our proposed dissemination and outreach activities. Our strong partnership with UCTV has resulted in unique collaborations like Stem Cell Science with Alysson Muotri, to produce high-quality, easy-to-understand, 12-15 minutes videos about stem cells and their applications. To effectively reach diverse populations, including non-English-speaking people and racial and ethnic minorities, these episodes are translated into both Spanish and Portuguese. A pilot video of this channel received the 2018 Telly Award for excellence in science communication and, another episode received another Telly Award in 2019. This initiative alone brought in over 1 million views across its first season and consistently ranked in the top position for programming across all of the Universities of California. We also established the “Closer Look” online series, aimed to stimulate expert conversation between a basic scientist and a clinician about emerging stem cell research and clinical strategies tackling a variety of diseases. This has become a trendy venue for our scientists to meet and answer questions from the public. The average attendance is about 300 people by zoom. All the videos are recorded and made available on YouTube. We will also reinstitute an annual Stem Cell Day celebration and bring trainees to present their work to the public.

Publications

Mol Psychiatry (2022): Advancing preclinical models of psychiatric disorders with human brain organoid cultures. (PubMed: 35948659)
FEMS Microbiol Lett (2023): Bridging the gap with bacterial art. (PubMed: 37028930)
Nat Commun (2022): CDK12 is hyperactivated and a synthetic-lethal target in BRAF-mutated melanoma. (PubMed: 36309522)
Biomaterials (2023): Conductive electrospun polymer improves stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte function and maturation. (PubMed: 37898021)
Elife (2023): Dermomyotome-derived endothelial cells migrate to the dorsal aorta to support hematopoietic stem cell emergence. (PubMed: 37695317)
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (2023): OGT controls mammalian cell viability by regulating the proteasome/mTOR/ mitochondrial axis. (PubMed: 36626549)
J Cell Sci (2022): Proteomic analysis of the actin cortex in interphase and mitosis. (PubMed: 35892282)
Front Bioeng Biotechnol (2022): Recent advancements and future requirements in vascularization of cortical organoids. (PubMed: 36406234)
Mol Ther (2023): RNA editing: Expanding the potential of RNA therapeutics. (PubMed: 36620962)
Cell Mol Life Sci (2022): The role of BMP4 signaling in trophoblast emergence from pluripotency. (PubMed: 35877048)
Dev Cell (2023): Understanding cell fate acquisition in stem-cell-derived pancreatic islets using single-cell multiome-inferred regulomes. (PubMed: 37040771)