Griffith University’s new national research facility for adult stem cells will be the first in the world dedicated to stem cell research.
The Adult Stem Cell Research Centre, to be headed by 2003 Queenslander of the Year Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, will focus on diseases of the brain and spine, including Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and motor neuron disease.
In a world breakthrough last year, Professor Mackay-Sim’s team showed that stem cells from the olfactory mucosa – the organ of smell in the nose – could be grown in the laboratory into different types of cells, including heart, liver, muscle, kidney and blood cells.
The centre will receive $22 million in Federal Government funds over four years, and its work will complement the existing national stem cell centre in Melbourne.
In a further boost to stem cell research in Queensland, the Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies at Griffith University has received a $300 000 grant from the National and International Research Alliances Program under the Queensland Government’s Innovation Projects Fund.
It will be used for the Institute’s Genome Network of Stem Cells and will allow scientists to participate in the international Genome Network that is characterising genes involved in healthy and diseased cells.
Last reviewed 24 June 2006