The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) is an interdisciplinary research center founded in 2007 aimed at accelerating the pace of discovery in the field of stem cell science and regenerative medicine. HSCI brings together over 200 faculty from across Harvard’s schools and affiliated hospitals who are engaged in basic, translational and clinical research on a range of diseases and conditions.
Since its inception, HSCI has supported the work of over 400 scientists and trainees through a combination of core funding, pilot grants, technology development awards and educational programs. In addition to seed-funding innovative projects, HSCI provides infrastructure support through shared facilities and services including cell culture, microscopy and genomics. The institute also offers education and training opportunities for students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty.
The goal of HSCI is to harness the power of stem cells to regenerate tissues damaged by disease or injury and to understand how normal cells develop into healthy tissue. Because stem cells have the ability to self-renew indefinitely while retaining their ability to give rise to all other cell types in the body, they offer tremendous potential for treating a wide range of diseases with personalized therapies that replace lost or damaged cells with healthy ones.
HSCI’s research programs are organized around five themes: cancer; cardiovascular disease; diabetes & metabolism; neurodegeneration; and regeneration & repair. Within each theme, investigators are pursuing a variety of approaches including developmental biology, chemical biology, genomic editing, imaging & modeling and single-cell analysis. By working collaboratively across these different disciplines, HSCI scientists are making significant progress towards realizing the full therapeutic potential of stem cells.
Cancer: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in 6 deaths globally1 . While great strides have been made in recent years towards understanding this complex disease at a molecular level, current treatments are still largely based on surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy – all with significant side effects2 . Stem cell therapies offer promise as more targeted approaches that could potentially improve patient outcomes while reducing toxicity3 . One area of active investigation is using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to model tumorigenesis4 . This approach allows researchers to study an individual’s tumor at the cellular level providing insights into how best to treat it5 . Additionally