Seed Grants
The purpose of HSCI Seed Grants is to provide early funding for innovative projects in any field of stem cell research. The awards put particular emphasis on projects that might be difficult to fund from other sources, either because a project is considered to be "high risk/high reward" or because the research is ineligible for federal funding under the current federal restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research. Seed grants are open to any investigator with a Harvard affiliation.
On May 1, 2008, the HSCI named the 10 recipients of the 2008 Seed Grant awards. This year's recipients were evaluated by the HSCI Seed Grant review committee and confirmed by the HSCI Executive Committee from a pool of 64 applicants. The 2008 recipients' projects represent work being done at 4 different Harvard affiliate locations and include 1 working in hESC and 3 researching iPS.
We are please to announce that the project of Sangeeta Bhatia, Brigham and Women's Hospital, is being supported by the Millipore Foundation.
The 2008 seed grants recipients were selected from a pool of approximately 70 applicants. Awardees will each receive $75,000/yr for two years.
2008 Seed Grant Recipients
| Name | Affiliation | Grant Title |
|---|---|---|
| Arlotta, Paola | Massachusetts General Hospital | Directed Differentiation of Neural Progenitors and iPS Cells into Corticospinal Motor Neurons |
| Bhatia, Sangeeta | Brigham & Women's Hospital | High-throughput platform for probing inductive interactions in embryonic stem cell differentiation |
| Burns, Caroline | Massachusetts General Hospital | Lineage Analysis of Cardiac Progenitor Cells in vivo |
| Haggarty, Stephen | Massachusetts General Hospital | Characterization on the Wnt/GSK-3beta Pathway in Fragile X Syndrome Using a Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Model |
| Li, Xue | Children's Hospital Boston | Renal Progenitor Cells: Genetic Studies of Eya1 Protein Phosphatase |
| Lieberman, Judy | Immune Disease Institute | An siRNA screen for genes that regulate breast cancer stem cells |
| Pu, William | Children's Hospital Boston | Epicardial cardiac progenitors in the developing and adult heart |
| Wang, Zhong | Massachusetts General Hospital | ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling in mouse and human ES cell pluripotency |
| Wingert, Rebecca | Massachusetts General Hospital | Molecular networks regulating the segment fate decisions of renal progenitors |
| Wu, Sean | Massachusetts General Hospital | Functional biology of induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Organ |
2007 Seed Grant Recipients
| Name | Affiliation | Grant Title |
|---|---|---|
| Li Chai | Brigham & Women's Hospital | SALL4 Dependent Transcriptional Network in Human and Murine Embryonic Stem Cells |
| Zheng-Yi Chen | Massachusetts General Hospital | Inner ear stem cell genes: identification, function and role in hair cell regeneration |
| Dieter Egli | Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University | * Derivation of patient specific human embryonic stem cell lines by chromosome transfer into human zygotes and blastomeres |
| Richard Gregory | Children's Hospital Boston | * Promoting stem cell expansion through chemical inhibition of microRNA-mediated cell differentiation |
| Benjamin Humphreys | Brigham & Women's Hospital | Epithelial Cell Lineage Analysis During Renal Repair |
| Carla Kim | Children's Hospital Boston | Lineage tracing of lung stem cells in vivo & in vitro |
| Kameran Lashkari | The Schepens Eye Research Institute | Application of retinal progenitor cells derived from eyes with persistent fetal vasculature to replace lost retinal ganglion cells in clinical glaucoma |
| Stuart Orkin | Children's Hospital Boston | Down Syndrome, somatic mutation of GATA-1, and acute megakaryoblastic (M7 AML) leukemia |
| Sridhar Rao / Ibrahim Domian | Dana Farber Cancer Institute / Massachusetts General Hospital | Identification of Master Transcriptional Regulators for Early Lineage Commitment |
| Sabina Signoretti | Brigham & Women's Hospital | Identification of stem cells in prostate and bladder epithelia |
* Supported by The Paul Singer Family Foundation
2006 Seed Grant Recipients
| Name | Affiliation | Grant Title |
|---|---|---|
| Raymond Anchan | Brigham & Women's Hospital | Derivation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) from blastomere biopsies |
| Scott Armstrong | Children's Hospital Boston | Development of a hematopoietic stem cell and lineage differentiation map and repository |
| Bradley Bernstein | Massachusetts General Hospital | Epigenetic mechanisms of ES cell pluripotency |
| Keith Blackwell | Joslin Diabetes Center | Functions of the oocyte RNA-binding P-body protein CAR-1 |
| David Breault | Children's Hospital Boston | Characterization of Putative Intestinal Progenitor/Stem Cells using mTert-GFP Transgenic Mice |
| Rona Carroll | Brigham & Women's Hospital | Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapy for human brain tumors |
| Konrad Hochedlinger | Massachusetts General Hospital | Analysis of the pluripotency factors Oct4, Nanog and Sox2 in Adult Mice |
| Hanno Hock | Massachusetts General Hospital | Deciphering the Biology of the Transcriptional Repressor Tel/Etv6 in Hematopoietic Stem Cells |
| Charles Lin | Massachusetts General Hospital | In-vivo Imaging of Hemotopoietic Stem Cell Niche |
| Anjana Rao | Immune Disease Institute | Identifying DNA demethylases |
| Rosalind Segal | Dana Farber Cancer Institute | Symmetric and Asymmetric Proliferation of Glioma Stem Cells |
| Yaming Wang | Brigham & Women's Hospital | Evaluation of the regeneration capacity of msx1-induced dedifferentiated cells |
| Jing-Wei Xiong | Massachusetts General Hospital | The Hemangioblast Development in Zebrafish |
2005 Seed Grant Recipients
| Name | Affiliation | Grant Title |
|---|---|---|
| Nabeel Bardeesy | Massachusetts General Hospital | The pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell-of-origin |
| Dong Feng Chen | The Schepens Eye Research Institute | Repairing retinal disease and damage by neural stem/progenitor cell transplantation |
| Alan Davidson | Massachusetts General Hospital | Functional genomics approach to identify genes expressed in the kidney |
| Kevin Eggan | Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University | Derivation of Parkinson's disease specific human embryonic stem cell lines |
| Niels Geijsen | Massachusetts General Hospital | In vitro germ cell development and epigenetic reprogramming using human and murine ES cells |
| Rohit Kulkarni | Joslin Diabetes Center | Identification of beta cell growth factor |
| Jeannie Lee | Massachusetts General Hospital | Analysis of X-chromosome inactivation in human embryonic stem cells |
| M. William Lensch | Children's Hospital Boston | The analysis of complex genetic syndromes using disease-specific human embryonic stem cell lines |
| Craig Michelli | Harvard Medical School | Progenitor cells in the adult Drosophila gut: understanding tissue renewal in endoderm lineages |
| Hanna Mikkola | Dana Farber Cancer Institute | Placenta as a niche for hematopoietic stem cell development |
| Rosario Sanchez-Pernaute | McLean Hospital | Characterization, transplantation and functional analysis of dopamine neuronal progenitors derived from primate and human embryonic stem cells |
| Amy Wagers | Joslin Diabetes Center | Biology and function of adult skeletal muscle precursor cells |