VCU Medical Center Holds Cellular Therapeutics Lab Open House
For Immediate Release
April 27, 2010
Expanded lab extends clinical care, basic and clinical research
Virginia Commonwealth University today dedicated the Cellular Therapeutics Lab for the VCU Massey Cancer Center’s Bone Marrow Transplant Program.
The new facility will provide a Food and Drug Administration-compliant area to expand the current cellular therapeutics clinical enterprise to perform procedures more specifically tailored to individual cancer patients’ needs as opposed to broadly supporting intensive, high-dose chemotherapy treatments used in bone marrow transplantation.
Cellular therapeutics is where specific cellular elements of the patient’s or donor’s immune system are isolated or adapted to work as a focused therapy for cancer or immune-mediated disorders, providing new hope for patients with a myriad of diseases.
“This laboratory will allow us to take our existing adult stem cells from sources such as blood, bone marrow and umbilical cord blood and use them to their maximum potential, both in transplantation cancer therapy and immune therapy,” said John McCarty, M.D., professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and director of VCU’s Bone Marrow Transplant Program.
Located in the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, the $1.8 million, 5,000-square-foot expanded laboratory will include a main clinical lab for actual stem cell processing and three smaller GMP laboratories behind a special air lock for advanced cell therapy preparation. In addition, the expansion will allow for conference space and office areas.
The new space will allow transplant physicians to speed up their stem cell collection processes, making it safer and more efficient, and will enable them to work with twice as many cell samples at one time than in their previous space, a necessity given the growth of the transplantation program.
McCarty said the new lab also will provide an environment that extends beyond clinical work and serve as a tool to bring promising preclinical work to patients and foster the development of novel techniques and protocols by incorporating the efforts of clinicians and researchers at VCU and Massey Cancer Center.
“To have the integrated clinical research and integrated applied basic research in one place is a benefit for promoting translation of new discoveries into cutting edge clinical practice,” said Gordon Ginder, M.D., director of the VCU Massey Cancer Center. “Bringing researchers together from various disciplines is one of the things we do best, and this leads to acceleration of the process of bringing new biomedical discoveries to the bedside to benefit patients.”
According to McCarty, another objective of the new lab is to reach potential investigators in other disciplines at VCU to collaborate and explore other diseases that could be treated using cellular therapeutics.
The work performed in the lab will encompass treatments beyond those specific to oncology because cellular therapy may also be applied to patients in non-cancer disciplines, and many of the advances in transplantation have come from work in non-cancer disciplines.
“This laboratory is a physical reflection of the potential of the ongoing partnership of the university, the hospital, the cancer center and of the referring physicians that we work with who put their patients in our trust in working to solve the cancer problem,” said McCarty. “This state of the art laboratory is really a resource that many transplant programs do not have.”
For more information or to get involved with the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program, research, contact Cathy Roberts, Ph.D. at 804-828-1292.
About the VCU Massey Cancer Center : The VCU Massey CancerCenter is one of 65 National Cancer Institute-designated institutions that leads and shapes America’s cancer research efforts. Working with all kinds of cancers, the Center conducts basic, translational and clinical cancer research, provides state-of-the-art treatments and promotes cancer prevention and education. Since 1974, Massey has served as an internationally recognized center of excellence. It offers more clinical trials than any other institution in Virginia, serving patients in Richmond and in four satellite locations. Treating all kinds of cancers, its 1,000 researchers, clinicians and staff members are dedicated to improving the quality of human life by developing and delivering effective means to prevent, control and, ultimately, to cure cancer. Visit Massey online at www.massey.vcu.edu or call 1-877-4-MASSEY.
About VCU and the VCU Medical Center : Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 32,000 students in 211 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-nine of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 13 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu.
About the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park : The Virginia BioTechnology Research Park is currently home to a unique mix of more than 59 public and private bioscience companies, research institutes affiliated with the VCU Medical Center, and major state and national medical laboratories. These companies are housed in nine buildings totaling more than 1.1 million square feet of space, representing an employee base that exceeds 2,000. The Park’s Biosciences Commercialization Center has been created to take incubator graduates through commercialization to M&A or IPO, giving the Park’s tenants full-scale business assistance. The Commercialization Center is now the home of eight companies from the Israeli life science community and continues to expand its resource base. It has created alliances with leading incubators in Israel. To date, the Park’s incubator and commercialization center have graduated three companies that are now publicly traded. www.vabiotech.com.
Contact:
Malorie Janis
VCU Communications and Public Relations
(804) 827-0889
mgjanis@vcu.edu
Courtney Skunda
Virginia BioTechnology Research Park
(804) 827-2137
cskunda@vabiotech.com
