Core C

The JDRF Collaborative Center for Cell Therapy
  1. To support the JDRF Center in the development of clinical applications of regulatory T cells for therapeutic intervention
  2. To support core facilities and administrative infrastructure in the Center
  3. To coordinating activities at both Sites to ensure that the pre-clinical studies are rapidly translated into human therapies and that the clinical protocols are maximized at the different sites
  4. To administer the Pilot & Feasibility Projects

The mission of the JDRF Collaborative Center for Cell Therapy is to promote the basic and clinical research that will lead to successful regulatory cell therapy in patients with ongoing autoaggressive Type 1 diabetes. The approach will be multi-faceted taking advantage of the faculty at each institution with strong research projects in both basic and clinical immunology. Efforts will be focused on efforts towards identifying novel approaches to cell therapy coupled with the most effective immunotherapies pioneered at the Diabetes Center at UCSF, University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. This endeavor underlines a new approach to the treatment of Type 1 Diabetes by bringing together committed groups of researchers with strong, complimentary, credentials in basic science, clinical research and the treatment of diabetes.

The JDRF Collaborative Center for Cellular Therapy is part of the Diabetes Center at UCSF. The Diabetes Center is an organized research unit at University of California, San Francisco. This unit has functioned for more than a half-century as a basic and clinical research enterprise at the forefront of diabetes research. The Center supports various seminar series, early stage research, and a strong educational program. Special emphasis is placed on creating a collaborative basic and clinical research environment to promote interdisciplinary research, facilitate and encourage new research in Type 1 diabetes, provide state-of-the art facilities for research and continue to build a superb translational research program. In this regard, a substantial amount of the core activities have been directed at the translational research effort. As an example UCSF has spent over 4.5 million dollars building a cGMP Human Islet and Cellular Therapy Facility.

The Administrative Core will organize the Center activities. We will develop a Pilot and Feasibility Program by the 3rd year that will foster efforts in the cell therapy research arena. The core will Schedule monthly videoconferencing /quarterly face-to-face meetings to discuss ongoing research and clinical efforts, and organized the core and financial aspects of the Center research program. Finally, we will appoint an external advisory group that will meet once a year to discuss advances and progress in our efforts with very specific duties.

The advisory members are:

Gerald Nepom, MD, PhD
Prof., Dept. of Immunology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Director, Immunology and Diabetes
Research Programs, Virginia Mason Research Center

 
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