ANN ARBOR, Mich.
The University of Michigan is allocating $10.5 million for an expansion of its stem cell research programs, an effort to keep the school in the vanguard of biomedical research, President Mary Sue Coleman says.
Coleman said the school was establishing an interdisciplinary center for stem cell research, based in Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute.
“Stem cell science is one of the most important areas in biomedical research today,” Coleman said in a statement. “It has already yielded key insights into the elusive biology of human development and has great potential for increasing our understanding of devastating human diseases like diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.”
The $10.5 million funding for the center comes from the Medical School, the Life Sciences Institute and the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, the university said.
Stem cell scientist Sean Morrison will head the center, which will hire up to seven faculty members. Morrison, an associate professor of internal medicine, has studied stem cells that produce blood and immune system cells and those that produce the cells of the peripheral nervous system.
The university says the center “will emphasize using stem cell science to answer the most pressing questions of fundamental human biology, such as how specific tissues in the body are formed and how cells communicate with one another.”
