Page 5 - Gates-AnnualReport-2018

system the ability to recognize and attack cancer cells. These CAR-T cells were shipped to the locations of clinical trials around the nation. Congratulations are due to GBF Executive Director Ryan Crisman, Director of Finance & Operations Tim Gardner, and their entire team. CU Anschutz Chancellor Don Elliman called the event “another important milestone in collaborative efforts at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus to be a leading bench-to-bedside research and treatment center.”
We are also thankful to report that bench science did not suffer as we accumulated other returns on investment. A highly efficient and safe technology to reprogram a patient’s diseased skin cells into stem cells developed by Gates members Ganna Bilousova, Ph.D. and Igor Kogut, Ph.D., was highlighted in the elite Nature Communications in February 2018. This unique reprogramming technology has enabled a number of successful grant applications and allowed us to focus on a wide variety of potential treatments—particularly where there are no readily accessible affected tissues. The Gates Center Stem Cell Biobank and Disease Modeling Core, founded around this technology, has both lowered costs and shortened research time for scientists across the nation and around the globe, successes you can read more about on page 36.
Last year also marked the previously-announced arrival of leading national cancer researcher Terry J. Fry, M.D., to the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. Dr. Fry, also a Gates Center member, is a pioneer in the fast-expanding field of CAR-T cells as cancer-fighting weapons. According to Dr. Fry, the capabilities of the GBF and other collaborative efforts at Anschutz were critical factors leading to his decision to move his research team from the NIH to our medical campus.
During the year, the Gates Center added 17 new members from across CU Anschutz and other campuses, further extending our collaborations and research efforts. Among numerous accomplishments and contributions, individual Gates Center members stepped forward as mentors to help
us inspire the next generation of scientists and clinicians through our annual Gates Summer Internship Program.
As the Center focused on specific areas of technology, commercialization and production, we also finalized a new and ambitious strategic plan with the invaluable guidance of our Advisory Board and other key stakeholders. As part of this long-term planning, Gates Center leadership identified the most promising areas of research focus, and CU Innovations contributed a competitive review and analysis of other leading academic research centers to help spotlight areas we can be proud of and areas where we can continue to challenge ourselves.
Throughout these efforts, we are reminded that a crucial multiplier for our return on investment is the aforementioned collaboration that we work to inspire. The “Zoobiquity Colorado” conference in the fall of 2018 was a perfect example, itself a result of close collaboration with Colorado State University. The two-day, two-campus event explored how the human and animal medical sciences are informing each other to reach new understanding. As an example, the pipeline toward clinical trials now includes teams comprised of both animal and human orthopedic surgeons from both our campuses.
In other important collaborative efforts highlighted on page 18, the Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) iPS Cell Consortium, of which the Gates Center is a part, received a $3.8 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The grant will help move discoveries in stem cell-created skin grafts into the manufacturing stage—a crucial step toward initiating one of the first iPSC-based clinical trials in the US. The Consortium includes research teams from the Gates Center, Stanford University School of Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center. Members of this EB Consortium share in the dedication to find a permanent corrective therapy for this devastating, blistering skin disease and to the potential of applying it to other currently incurable monogenetic diseases.
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