The New York Stem Cell Foundation: Accelerating Cures Through Stem Cell Research

Abstract

The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) was established in 2005 to provide private support for human embryonic stem cell research. Researchers at Harvard had the tools to attempt somatic cell nuclear transfer, but legal restrictions in Massachusetts made it difficult to perform their research. [...]critical types of experiments could not be performed in federally funded laboratories at the universities, so researchers at these two institutions turned to the NYSCF laboratories to carry out this groundbreaking research. Because we are primarily privately supported, our ability to fund research and conduct our other programs is unaffected by the frustrating and debilitating cycles of off-again, on-again, off-again NIH support. With the guidance of our scientific advisors, including Zach Hall—NYSCF board member, former president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke—we have supported many of the top scientists in the New York area and around the world, researchers who we hope will one day make a significant impact on improving the lives of patients. The Personalized Medicine Bank will allow researchers to scale their discoveries and translate their experiments into medicine, find the genetic causes of disease, replicate diseases in a dish using the human cells that are actually getting sick, and anticipate how people from genetically diverse backgrounds will respond to different drugs before clinical trials—in essence a clinical trial in a dish.