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A Message from the Chair

boulisA modern medical miracle

I consider stem cells to be a modern medical miracle – the most exciting advance in medicine since antibiotics. Yet just a few years ago, Michigan’s scientists couldn’t make new stem cell lines. Well, they could – but they would be committing a crime that could land them in jail for 10 years and cost them $10 million.

Thankfully, Michigan voters spoke out loudly in favor of curing diseases when in 2008 they approved a constitutional amendment lifting restrictions on stem cell research.

Since then, the progress we have made throughout the state in stem cell research has been nothing short of remarkable. Our great research institutions are hiring new scientists and doing cutting-edge work. The biotech industry is heating up, creating jobs and new opportunities. We’re on the verge of new, life-saving advances in medicine as a result of this burgeoning frontier of research.

At the University of Michigan, I founded the Taubman Institute to support innovative medical science like stem cell research. So far, we have selected 16 Taubman Scholars – respected researchers who also have active, real-world patient practices -- to establish their laboratories and research at the University of Michigan as they seek cures and treatments for life-threatening diseases like diabetes, stroke, ALS and cancer.

We’ve held four annual symposia and inaugurated a Visiting Professor lecture series to bring eminent scientists like Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Gary Landreth of Case Western Reserve University to speak in Ann Arbor.  And with the generous assistance of key donors, we have established an Emerging Scholars program to fund young physician-scientists and keep their research ambitions alive while they accumulate experience and credentials.

But that’s not all we’re doing at the University of Michigan. We’ve established the Consortium for Stem Cell Therapies, the first facility for the derivation of embryonic stem cell lines in Michigan.

We also support the groundbreaking work of Max Wicha, the man who discovered cancer stem cells and who has a number of clinical trials currently under way to target them. This could be the cancer breakthrough we have all been waiting for.

Yes, it is an exciting time to be in Michigan if you are a medical scientist. We are making crucial laboratory discoveries. More importantly, we’re moving that progress from bench to bedside. That is the goal of the Taubman Institute.

Sincerely,

A. Alfred Taubman
Founder and Chair, A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute

 

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