The Hindu : Front Page : Stem cell research centre at Stanley

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Tuesday, Apr 01, 2008
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Stem cell research centre at Stanley

Ramya Kannan and Shastry Mallady

ICMR will fund the project

— File photo

The centre will be located in the Surgical Gastroenterology block of the hospital.

CHENNAI: The first ever stem cell research centre in the government sector in Tamil Nadu will come up in Government Stanley Hospital on an outlay of Rs.15 crore. The Indian Council for Medical Research will fund the project.

College Dean Mythili Bhaskaran told The Hindu that the formal approval had come through after a team from the ICMR conducted an inspection of the college 10 days ago. The centre will be located in the Surgical Gastroenterology block, she said.

While conceived as a research centre for stem culture for liver transplantation, over a period of time the scope had been expanded to cover other applications of stem cells as well, she said. Staff of the core research team in the college will be sent for training to other stem cell research centres of repute. “This is just the beginning of research. For any of these applications to be used in clinical practice it will definitely take years,” she said.

“The initial funds will be transferred to Stanley Medical College in a few days. It will be our contribution for purchase of equipment required for stem cell research,” according to M.Rajamani, senior deputy director-general (Administration), ICMR, who was in Madurai recently. He said the ICMR planned to spend substantial amount on basic research and stem cell research was an essential part of that.

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