MIMG Faculty Dr. Lili Yang and Dr. Donald Kohn among UCLA scientists to receive CIRM Quest Awards

Associate Professor of MIMG Lili Yang and Distinguished Professor of MIMG are among a group of UCLA scientists to receive the Quest Award from the Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research (CIRM) for their work in developing novel stem cell-based technologies.

Dr. Yang’s award of $1.4 million will fund her efforts to develop stem cell-engineered off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor-invariant natural killer T cells, or CAR-iNKT cells, to treat ovarian cancer, which accounts for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. She aims to produce CAR-iNKT cells that target mesothelin, a protein that is found in high levels on the surface of ovarian cancer cells. The proposed immunotherapy builds on Yang’s work to generate blood stem cell-derived CAR-iNKT cells to target multiple myeloma, a project that received funding from CIRM in 2021. Yang will collaborate on this project with Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh, a UCLA physician-scientist who specializes in ovarian cancer treatment.

Dr. Kohn’s $1.3 million award will support his research to develop a blood stem cell gene therapy to treat severe alpha thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that causes a patient’s body to make less hemoglobin than normal. Hemoglobin carries oxygen to all parts of the body, so severe alpha thalassemia could lead to fetal death or a lifelong need for blood transfusions. If there is a team capable of creating an ex vivo gene therapy treatment for alpha thalassemia and bringing it to a clinical trial, this is the team, CIRM reviewers said.

For more information, read the fulll article: UCLA scientists receive CIRM Quest Awards to develop novel stem cell-based technologies