California's Stem Cell Agency

This grant has enabled a plethora of activities pertaining to stem cell genomics in the state of California. The Stanford Administrative Core for the Center of Excellence in Stem Cell Genomics (CESCG) has been established and is responsible for overseeing joint center activities and the administration of center-initiated projects (CIP) 1 and 2, and several collaborative research projects (CRP). In the second year of the award the CESCG administration organized monthly telephone conference calls to share research progress and coordinate activities across the center. On April 29, 2016 the CESCG held its second center-wide retreat in a one-day event at Salk Institute. The two CIPs have made significant progress. CIP1 has recruited 102 donors and generated a valuable resource of 71 induced pluripotent stem cell lines. Whole genome sequencing from the first batch of 10 iPSCs has been completed and data analysis is underway. CIP1 has also started differentiating an initial set of iPSCs into cardiomyocytes and treated them with various drugs. RNA-seq is underway to detect the effects of drug treatment. CIP2 has completed the first human single cell brain analysis and is finishing the derivation of a single cell fetal and adult pancreatic map. We have also launched our second call of CRP grants. Following receipt of call 2 applications on October 30, 2015 and successful review on January 15, 2016, the Administrative Core at Stanford has issued subcontract awards to four CRPs that will be managed by the Northern California CESCG site. The principal investigators of these CRPs are Jacob Corn from Berkeley, Jeanne Loring from Scripps, Irving Weissman from Stanford, and Gene Yeo from UCSD. These research projects from the CIPs and CRPs will transform stem cell research in California and continue its preeminence in this area.

This grant has enabled a plethora of activities pertaining to stem cell genomics in the state of California. The Stanford Administrative Core for the Center of Excellence in Stem Cell Genomics (CESCG) has been established and is responsible for overseeing joint center activities and the administration of center-initiated projects (CIP) 1 and 2, and several collaborative research projects (CRP). In the fourth year of the award the CESCG administration organized monthly telephone conference calls to share research progress and coordinate activities across the center. On May 17th-18th, 2018 the CESCG held its fourth annual stem cell genomic CIRM retreat at Salk Institute. CIP1 has collected 289 blood samples in total and generated a valuable resource of 249 induced pluripotent stem cell lines. Whole genome sequencing from the first batch of 207 iPSCs has been completed and data analyzed. CIP1 has also differentiated 49 iPSCs into cardiomyocytes and treated them with various drugs followed by RNA-Seq. CIP2 has finished the collection of pancreas cells studied by patch-clamp cells and followed by single-cell RNA-seq. They have collected over 1,000 cells that passed quality control after sequencing, including over 300 cells from type-2 diabetes donors. Additional improvements have been made to the TCL-Seq method. The single-cell mRNA-seq pipeline has been cost reduced, and the throughput has been dramatically increased. In addition, a manuscript drafting on fetal pancreas is underway. All other CRP collaborators have made a significant progress in their projects. These research projects from the CIPs and CRPs will transform stem cell research in California and continue its preeminence in this area.