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Anonymous Donor Pledges $25 Million
to Stem Cell Research
Commitment from grateful patient is largest gift ever for Health Science Center
A $25 million anonymous gift to the Brown Foundation IMM will help the UT Health Science Center at Houston recruit a new leader to advance stem cell research already under way among a few IMM scientists. Eva Zsigmond, Ph.D., associate director of the Laboratory for Developmental Biology, and Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., director, are studying and characterizing stem cells and developing techniques to control their differentiation into other cell types.
Photo by Ina Fried
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has received its largest philanthropic gift ever – a 10-year, $25 million anonymous commitment to stem cell research at The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM).
Identified as a grateful patient of James T. Willerson, M.D., cardiologist and president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, the anonymous donor has designated the gift for continued scientific discovery related to stem cell biology.
“This transforming gift will allow us to recruit an internationally respected leader in this field, who will work with us to create a world-class center for stem cell research,” Willerson said. “This incredible commitment is a landmark event, not only for the university, but also for stem cell research in the Texas Medical Center.”
Willerson explained that recruitment soon will be under way to bring to Houston a stem cell scientist who will create and lead the center dedicated to fundamental biologic research into how stem cells develop and differentiate. Unique in their ability to continually divide, stem cells have the potential of turning into virtually any cell type and tissue in the body.
He explained that, by coaxing the cells to differentiate into specific cell types, scientists could use them to create cardiomyocytes for heart tissue repair, neurons to replenish those damaged by stroke, or pancreatic islet cells for the treatment of diabetes.
Willerson, who also serves as medical director at the Texas Heart Institute, and fellow researchers on March 23 announced approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin conducting adult stem cell studies in the Texas Medical Center.
The work will expand clinical studies under way in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which have shown promise in reversing end-stage heart failure in patients by using their own bone marrow-derived stem cells. The clinical trial is a collaboration with Emerson Perin, M.D., of the Texas Heart Institute and Hans Dohmann, M.D., and his colleagues in Brazil.
The progress of such studies, Willerson said, will pave the way in Houston for the eventual testing of both adult and embryonic stem cell discoveries made at the IMM.
“The investigations of this new center will prove crucial to the translation of molecular medicine into actual drug development and patient care,” Willerson said.
Led by Director Ferid Murad, M.D., Ph.D., the institute already conducts extensive research using mouse embryonic stem cell lines. Murad, who received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work in nitric oxide (NO) research, has begun studies into how NO regulates the differentiation of embryonic stem cells into cardiomyocytes and neurons.
With the anonymous gift, the university has reached $176 million in its $200 million New Frontiers Campaign, chaired by Beth Robertson and co-chaired by Ben Love. Campaign funds will build a new home for the IMM, recruit additional internationally known scientists, and expand research into the gene and protein causes of human diseases.
The New Frontiers Campaign has received two other record-setting gifts from donors to the UT Health Science Center at Houston. The now secondlargest gift in the university’s history was a $20 million commitment from The Brown Foundation to name the IMM. In addition, the largest corporate gift to the university came from H-E-B in the amount of $1 million.
— Amber Buckley, Development