City of Hope and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have established the Caltech/City of Hope Medical Research Fund, which will support collaborative
biomedical and bioengineering research programs aimed at developing new treatments for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.
 City of Hope and Caltech researchers are studying a natural product from the
sea squirt Dendrodoa grossularia as a potential cancer treatment. (Image: Keith Hiscock) |
The two institutions also have established the Caltech/City of Hope Endowed Funds, an endowment that will support a series of public educational forums highlighting new developments in biomedicine and therapies. The interdisciplinary research programs and educational forums, which continue a tradition of partnership between City of Hope and Caltech, are funded by a $1.5 million seed gift from an anonymous donor.
The Caltech/City of Hope Medical Research Fund, established by $1 million of the anonymous gift, will support research projects that effectively apply the strengths of both institutions through teams of investigators working to leverage groundbreaking research into developing improved treatments. Researchers from both institutions may submit proposals for funding of studies that are jointly conceived. The institutions are working on future donations to help
sustain the research fund.
“This fund will catalyze cooperative, interdisciplinary research aimed at improving treatments for patients. I look forward to building on our history of fruitful collaboration with Caltech,” said Richard Jove, Ph.D., director of Beckman
Research Institute.
The Caltech/City of Hope Medical Research Fund will be administered jointly by Jove and Stephen L. Mayo, Ph.D., vice provost of research and Bren Professor of Biology and Chemistry at Caltech.
“These funds will be a great catalyst in fostering collaborative research and development programs between Caltech and City of Hope, which, in many cases, have extremely complementary activities,” said Mayo.
Initially, the endowment has awarded support funds to two studies aimed at improving cancer and diabetes treatments.
David Horne, Ph.D., chair of City of Hope’s Division of Molecular Medicine, discovered a natural marine product — a substance from the sea squirt — that can shrink tumors in laboratory trials. However, harvesting enough material from the ocean for testing and development is neither ecologically sustainable nor practical. To develop this promising compound into a potential new cancer therapy, Horne and Brian Stoltz, Ph.D., the Ethel Wilson Bowles and Robert Bowles Professor of Chemistry in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech, are developing a synthetic version of the compound that can be produced in large quantities.
One of the most promising investigational treatments for type 1 diabetes is islet cell transplantation to replace the damaged insulin-making cells in a patient with healthy ones. A difficulty of the procedure is that it is currently impossible to track the transplanted islet cells and image them to assess how many cells successfully take hold and function normally.
Fouad R. Kandeel, M.D., Ph.D., director of City of Hope’s Department of Diabetes,
Endocrinology & Metabolism, and Scott Fraser, Ph.D., the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and director of Caltech’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, are developing a technology to accomplish that task non-invasively to help improve islet cell transplantation.
The remaining $500,000 of the gift will establish the Caltech/City of Hope Endowed
Funds at Caltech and City of Hope. Proceeds from the endowment will be used for networking events to foster further interaction between Caltech and City of Hope faculty and help identify potential areas of collaboration.
The fund also will support educational forums for the community to educate the general public on the advanced scientific research being conducted on both campuses. Both the endowed and medical research funds are expected to increase over time through gifts from other generous donors to further enhance collaborative
research partnerships between Caltech and City of Hope.
“Today, more than ever, collaboration is vital to accelerating the pace of scientific discovery and translating knowledge into applications that save lives,” said Michael A. Friedman, M.D., City of Hope president and chief executive officer. “These grants allow Caltech and City of Hope to share our knowledge with the community and, hopefully, inspire more people to study science and further our collective efforts.”