Dr. Meri Firpo never realized that the two stem cell lines that she and her colleagues created at the beginning of the millennium would be among the Bush Administration's 60 cell lines approved in 2001 for federal funding.  Now that the number of viable government-approved stem cell lines has dropped to 15 -- and because UCSF is the only public institution in the U.S. possessing any of these cell lines -- Dr. Firpo and her team have now become stem cell distributors.  To date, over 50 orders of cells have been sent to federally funded labs in the U.S. and to labs around the world.  Not only is Dr. Firpo the custodian of these important cells, she is now a world-wide distributor!

When Dr. Firpo first took on this role, she had four goals:  to distribute the stem cells; to set-up training programs for users; to develop a website to be used as an educational resource (http://escells.ucsf.edu); and to work on culturing the cells so they could be used for clinical purposes (i.e. transplantation).  To date, the first three of her four goals have been achieved.  Unfortunately, Dr. Firpo has not been successful in culturing the cells for clinical application because these cells were grown on "mouse feeders" -- utlizing unknown reagents that may possibly contain contaminates.

Recently, Dr. Firpo and her colleagues have been successful in developing 10 new lines in a non-federally funded facility, off the UCSF Campus.  Not only were these lines developed on "human feeders", they were derived utilizing "good laboratory practices" (GLP) where reagents were specifically defined and categorized.

Dr. Firpo has been collaborating closely with six labs on the UCSF Campus including the Diabetes Center.  Not only is Dr. Firpo working closely with Drs. Jeffrey Bluestone, Michael German and Matthias Hebrok, she is delighted she will be able to use the Diabetes Center's new, state-of-the-art Islet & Cellular Transplantation Facility which includes a "good manufacturing practices" (GMP) stem cell lab -- a step above a GLP facility.  Recently, Dr. Firpo helped to introduce a number of genes to her stem cells -- genes that are important in the development of pancreatic beta cells.  Hopefully this will result in an increase in the number of beta cells produced by these stem cells.

Dr. Firpo expects to publish a paper in the near future that will describe how UCSF has moved from a mouse process to a human system.  Besides offering ongoing support to researchers around the world and continuing to create new cell lines, Dr. Firpo has presented at two NIH organized stem cell workshops and she will be teaching two NIH-funded courses this spring and summer.

Stem cell research is an important priority at UCSF.  In just under 18 months, the Grove Stem Cell Challenge raised over $10 million to support stem cell research at UCSF.  Andrew S. Grove, National Chair of the Campaign for UCSF and Intel Corp Chairman, pledged $5 million in matching funds to bolster the UCSF Program in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology.  Proceeds from the challenge have funded stem cell research in diabetes, cancer, neuroscience and reproductive sciences as well as basic studies that promise to lead to better treatments for a multitude of diseases and disorders.

In adddition, a very exciting and potentially groundbreaking medical research ballot initiatiave is headed for the November 2004 California Ballot.  The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative will create the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and authorizes an average of $295 million in state bonds over a 10-year period to fund stem cell research and other advanced medical research by scientists at California universities and other research facilities throughout the state.  For more information, consult www.curesforcalifornia.com.