Biologist Meri Firpo opens the door of a refrigerator-sized incubator in the shiny new McGuire Translational Research Facility at the University of Minnesota. Inside the incubator, stacked plastic trays contain undifferentiated cells, naked to the human eye, covered in a red solution. The incubator regulates their condition as they grow from a single layer to a pile of cells. Firpo’s goal: developing a cure for diabetes. “I’m trying to generate insulin-producing cells in the lab suitable for transplantation,” she says.
The cells Firpo is trying to turn into insulin factories are stem cells. The most exciting and most controversial area of study in contemporary medicine, stem cells are the “parent” cells for all the components of the body. In humans, they are found at all stages of development, embryo to adult. In adults, they are found in certain tissues, notably in the blood, bone marrow, skin, muscle, and organs such as the brain and liver. Able to differentiate into a wide variety of tissue, stem cells hold promise for new treatments or cures for innumerable debilitating and (so far) incurable disorders and conditions, including diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
"The business prospects are bright, but they are high-risk investments."
Stem cells have been in the news enough that nearly everyone has at least heard of them. But what’s less generally known is that in the past few years, Minnesota has quietly become one of the worldwide leaders in stem cell research.
“In many ways, the Midwest, and Minnesota in particular, is ahead of the game,” says Frank Cerra, senior vice president of health sciences at the University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center, and one of the driving forces behind the U’s stem cell efforts. “At the university, we’ve made the investment in facilities and faculty, and we have the systems in place to capture the innovation and commercialize it in the private sector.”
It’s not just U of M honchos who are touting the school’s stem cell work. “When people think of the top half-dozen [stem cell research institutions in the country], I think most people would put the University of Minnesota in that category,” says Michael Werner, a Washington, D.C., public-policy consultant in the life sciences who has long been active in promoting stem cell research. He points in particular to the U’s success in luring Firpo away from the University of California at San Francisco, noting her development of two new stem cell lines for research. “People like that have their choice of where they want to go,” Werner says.
