UC Merced professor earns career-boosting stem cell award
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Date: 2007-12-17
Contact: Ana Nelson Shaw
Phone: (209) 228-4406
Email: ashaw@ucmerced.edu
MERCED -- There's a bridge to be crossed before stem cell therapies are ready for widespread use, according to Professor Jennifer O. Manilay at the University of California, Merced.

Tissues derived from embryonic stem cells are unlikely to be an immunological match for their intended recipients, and without immune system acceptance, they will not help patients. Manilay's research into transplantation and immune response aims to cross that bridge, and it is now supported by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).Jennifer Manilay

Manilay has received a $1.58 million grant from CIRM under the New Faculty Awards program, aimed at boosting the careers of promising stem cell scientists in California, to fund her research for the next five years.

"A New Faculty Award from CIRM is an honor for Jennifer and for UC Merced," said Dean of Natural Sciences Maria Pallavicini, who is a pioneering stem cell researcher. "It's an important career breakthrough for a young scientist to receive such a large award, and her innovative ideas in transplantation immunology certainly warrant the support she has now received."

Manilay plans to investigate a process by which she thinks the immune system might be prepared to receive tissues derived from embryonic stem cells that do not match the immune system of the intended recipient. Her proposal to CIRM for the project was based on a combination of her previous studies as a Ph.D. student at Harvard, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and a new faculty member at UC Merced.

She posits that hematopoetic, or bone marrow, stem cells derived from the same embryonic stem cells as the tissue intended for transplant may be able to pave the way for that tissue. These hematopoetic stem cells would be transplanted into the body before the stem-cell-derived tissue to develop alongside immune cells in the thymus. There, the native immune cells and the transplanted cells would teach each other to recognize the immune profiles of their respective systems of origin.

The experiments will proceed in several steps. Manilay plans first to find the best protocol for inducing embryonic stem cells to develop into hematopoetic stem cells. Then she will have to find the most robust among the different subpopulations of hematopoetic stem cells, using what she's learned in the last year in research funded by the UC Cancer Research Coordinating Committee. She said the hematopoetic stem cells best suited for the therapy she hopes to develop will likely be those with the chemical receptors that allow them to "home" to the thymus to develop.

If those initial steps are successful, Manilay can move on to testing how the hematopoetic stem cells work in living systems, specifically those affected by type 1 diabetes.

"Type I diabetes is a disease model with plenty of previous research and data, so it's a good place to start," she said.

But her research isn't limited to diabetes.

"If we are successful, this kind of procedure could be useful in many disease models," she explained.

In the past, Manilay said, stem-cell-derived tissues have mostly been tested in immune-compromised systems, where they could not be rejected. That wouldn't be the case in a real-life transplant of stem-cell-derived tissue.

"There's evidence that stem cells can survive in vivo but now it's time to try a more realistic model," she said.

Manilay also expressed gratitude for the program that has funded her research.

"A lot of funding agencies won't take a risk on a young faculty member in a new place," she said. "CIRM acknowledged the risk in my proposal but took a chance on me, and on UC Merced. Now, instead of spending time applying for a lot of small grants, I can really focus on developing and testing scientific ideas."

She plans to expand her research lab staffing with the funding, using the money to train graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as well as undergraduate student research assistants. The grant will also pay for supplies and travel to meetings.

She's particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity to attend CIRM's investigator meetings. There, she'll be able to network with other California stem cell researchers and form new collaborative relationships. Those relationships will supplement the ones she has already established with researchers at Harvard, Stanford and UC Merced who will advise and collaborate on the research funded by her new CIRM grant.

Manilay joined the UC Merced faulty in 2005. She earned a Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard and a B.A. in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley.

UC Merced opened September 5, 2005 as the 10th campus in the University of California system and the first American research university of the 21st century. The campus significantly expands access to the UC system for students throughout the state, with a special mission to increase college-going rates among students in the San Joaquin Valley. It also serves as a major base of advanced research and as a stimulus to economic growth and diversification throughout the region. Situated near Yosemite National Park, the university is expected to grow rapidly, topping out at approximately 25,000 students within 30 years.