The University of California Irvine may be a youngster in the world of great universities (having been established as recently as 1965), but the Southern California campus has not wasted any time distinguishing its research and academic programs. In fact, according to a recent ranking by the UK's Times Higher Education, UC Irvine is #1 in the US and #4 in the world among the Times' Top 100 Universities Under 50 Years Old. The new ranking category was added to specifically look at the merits of campuses that were not old enough to compete with prestigious, long-established institutions in areas like alumni support and "reputation" but nonetheless were strong in research and publications. The 100 Under 50 recognizes current and future promise more than past success, and in that respect UCI is unmatched in the US.
UC Irvine has a thriving medical school, of course, and some of the institution's greatest strengths are in the biomedical arena. Irvine's Multiple Sclerosis Research Center opened in 2011 to build on the university's strength in neurosciences, for example. The MS Center has already gathered more than two dozen UCI experts to advance novel methods of fighting the chronic neurologic disease. The director of the UCI MSRC is stem cell researcher Dr. Thomas Lane (right), and Lane has just been awarded a CIRM grant of $4.8M in the latest round of funding for its Early Translational Awards program.
Lane is a researcher at UCI's Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, as well as a professor and lab director in the Department of Molecular Biology and Chemistry. His recent $4.8M research grant to study stem cell therapies for treating Multiple Sclerosis brings total CIRM funding for UCI to $76.65M.
In this newest project Lane will collaborate with Australian MS researcher Claude Bernard at Monash University in Melbourne (a first-of-its-kind collaboration for the CIRM and Australia). Australia’s National Health & Medical Research Council will provide a supplemental $1.8M to advance the joint research. Additionally, Jeanne Loring, director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, will work with Lane to develop the neural stem cells to be used in the study. (See our recent UCSD blog for more stem cell research awardees in San Diego and La Jolla.)
[Photo of Dr. Lane by Steve Zylius / University Communications at UCI]
In a related piece of news, a stem cell treatment collaboration among UCI's Dr. Aileen Anderson and Dr.Brian Cummings, the Gross Center, and California company StemCells Inc. has just passed its first planned interim safety review for a clinical trial to be carried out in Zürich, Switzerland. The successful safety review indicates that the surgery, immunosuppression and cell transplants have been well tolerated in the test candidates. The StemCells Inc.-sponsored trial is the only ongoing clinical study of neural stem cell transplantation in spinal cord injury.
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. will be holding its 12th annual Irvine BioResearch Product Faire event on the UCI campus October 2, 2012. This professional show is an excellent opportunity for life scientists and lab equipment specialists to come together and discuss lab technologies to make every lab run at maximum efficiency. The UC Irvine BRPF event is one of three tradeshows held over a three-day period in the greater Los Angeles area:
- 10/02/2012 -- 12th Annual BRPF event, UC Irvine
- 10/03/2012 -- 7th Semiannual Front Line event, University of Southern California, Health Sciences Campus
- 10/04/2012 -- 29th Semiannual BVS event, UCLA
For more information on exhibiting at UC Irvine, click the button below. Explore our website and see the complete 2012 Show Schedule, then give one of our sales associates a call.
