New York Stem Cell Foundation

The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) is an American nonprofit organization, founded in the Spring of 2005, with the mission “accelerating cures for the major diseases of our time through stem cell research.” NYSCF established the first privately funded stem cell laboratory in New York City.
The foundation focuses on three areas:
*NYSCF Research and Laboratory - Supports non-government funded advanced stem cell research, in the NYSCF Research Institute laboratory and through collaborations with medical research institutions worldwide.
*NYSCF Innovator Program - Intends to support and train "the next generation of scientists," at the postdoctoral level as Fellows or as Investigators, pursuing innovative work that translates research into cures. NYSCF awards an annual prize to honor the most significant achievement in translational stem cell research.
*NYSCF Conference and Symposia - Convenes the annual translational stem cell research conference and on-going programs for scientists, policymakers and the public.
Susan L. Solomon is the CEO, and Kevin Eggan serves as the Chief Scientific Officer.
History
In 2005, Susan L. Solomon co-founded The New York Stem Cell Foundation with the mission of accelerating stem cell research to cure major disease. Solomon, an attorney with a previous career in business, started as a health-care advocate in 1992 when her son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Following her son's diagnosis and her mother's death from cancer in 2004, she sought to find a way to translate medical research more quickly into cures. In 2006, NYSCF established its own laboratory, now referred to as The NYSCF Research Institute.
NYSCF has raised nearly $100 million for stem cell research.
2012
*In December 2012, NYSCF scientists report in a successful technique that could be applied to prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial disease in children
*Susan L. Solomon was honored by the Genetics Policy Institute with the Stem Cell Action Leadership award
*Susan L. Solomon presented at TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, Scotland
2011
*Scott Noggle, PhD, Director of the NYSCF Lab, is named to ’s “40 under 40”
*Nature reports major advance in the development of patient-specific stem cells led by NYSCF researchers Dieter Egli, PhD, and Scott Noggle, PhD, in the NYSCF Laboratory
*NYSCF awards the Inaugural NYSCF - Robertson Stem Cell Prize to Peter J. Coffey, DPhil, for pioneering work with hESCs to treat age-related macular degeneration
2010
*NYSCF honors Dorothy Lichtenstein with its Humanitarian Award at its Gala
*Derick Rossi, PhD, a NYSCF Investigator, is named to Time magazine's “People who Mattered” list
2009
*The New York Stem Cell Science Program awards NYSCF with a facilities grant
*Solomon discusses stem cell research on The Martha Stewart Show
*Solomon attends signing of President Obama's executive order "Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells" at the White House
*Ten-time Olympic medalist and diabetes patient Gary Hall, Jr. featured on NYSCF public outreach panel
*Solomon discusses New York State's decision to fund research that includes compensating egg donors
*NYSCF honors Frank Gehry with its Humanitarian Award and Joel S. Marcus with its Leadership Award at its Gala
2008
*Susan L. Solomon honored with Women of Excellence Award by Governor David Paterson
*Time and Science cite NYSCF-funded research as the most significant scientific breakthrough of the year
The NYSCF Research Institute
In March 2006, NYSCF opened the first privately funded laboratory in New York. The lab was free from federal restrictions and allowed scientists to conduct all types of stem cell research, including studies that involve embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, and somatic cell nuclear transfer.
As of 2014, the NYSCF Research Institute occupies over 6,000 square feet of space, and employs 40 full-time researchers. The NYSCF Research Institute is home to the NYSCF Global Stem Cell Array, a proprietary, automated robotic technology that standardized production of induced pluripotent stem cell lines.
NYSCF focuses on disease modeling and the development of cell therapies.
Disease Areas
Scientists at the NYSCF Research Institute conduct translational stem cell research in the following disease areas:
*Alzheimer's disease
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*Cancer
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*Cardiovascular disease
*Macular degeneration
*Mitochondrial disease
*Multiple sclerosis
*Parkinson's disease
Selected research
2012
According to the December 19, 2012 issue of , NYSCF scientists, in collaboration with Columbia University Medical Center researchers, successfully transferred the nuclei between egg cells without detectable adverse effects on the resultant egg cell. Specifically, the team removed the nucleus of an unfertilized egg cell and replaced it with the nucleus of another donor's egg cell, but, unlike the work of previous groups, the researchers lowered the temperature of the egg, increasing transfer success rate.
2011
Time magazine-cited research led by NYSCF scientists Dieter Egli and Scott Noggle reprogrammed the adult skin cells from Type 1 diabetes patients to the pluripotent state by combining these cells with unfertilized donor eggs, as reported in Nature. The scientists then differentiated the pluripotent cells into other cell types in the body, including insulin-producing beta cells.
2010
In the December 27, 2010 edition of Time magazine, Derrick Rossi, PhD, a NYSCF - Robertston Investigator and an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, was named one of 2010's "People Who Mattered". Dr. Rossi pioneered a method to reprogram skin cells into stem cells with messenger molecules rather than viral vectors.
2008
Kevin Eggan, PhD, of Harvard University, applied induced pluripotent stem cell derivation techniques pioneered by Shinya Yamanaka, MD, to generate the first motor neurons from skin samples of ALS patients. This research was published in .
Internal grants
NYSCF supports stem cell research through external grants known as its "Innovator Programs." The NYSCF Innovator Programs are the NYSCF - Druckenmiller Fellowship, the NYSCF - Robertson Investigator Program, and the NYSCF - Robertson Prize.
*Druckenmiller Fellowship Program
*Robertson Investigator Program
*Robertson Prize
In 2012, Kazutoshi Takahashi, PhD, Lecturer at Kyoto University, won the NYSCF - Robertson Prize. Takahashi was the first author on a series of papers with Shinya Yamanaka, PhD, which described, for the first time, reprogramming adult cells into pluripotent stem cells. This work, the derivation of induced pluripotent stem cells, led to Yamanaka's 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
In 2011, Peter J. Coffey, DPhil, Professor of Cellular Therapy and Visual Sciences at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, was the inaugural recipient of the NYSCF - Robertson Prize.
Other winners include:
· 2013: Amy Wagers, PhD (Harvard University)
· 2014: Marius Wernig, MD, PhD (Stanford)
Outreach
Initiative on Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE)
NYSCF founded the Initiative on Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE) to create more gender equity in the sciences. The IWISE working group published recommendations for the field in Cell Stem Cell.

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