Illinois is awarding state-funded grants for stem cell research – a first for the Land of Lincoln.

On April 24, Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced 10 grants worth a total of $10 million for “life-saving” work of stem cell research at several Illinois hospitals and research institutions. Among the recipients were two University faculty members. Matthew Wheeler, professor of animal sciences, and Stephen Kaufman, professor of cell and structural biology, received $591,322 and $250,000 in grant money to continue study of mesenchymal and mesoangioblast stem cells respectively.

According to a press release from the Governor’s Office this makes Illinois the first state in the Midwest, and only the fourth state in the nation, to commit public funds to stem cell research.

The allocation of funds began last summer when Blagojevich issued an executive order directing the Illinois Department of Public Health to create a program to award grants for stem cell research through the Illinois Regenerative Medicine Institute.

The Department of Public Health created a panel of two bio-ethicists and six medical professionals with expertise in stem cells from Ireland and all over the United States, with the exception of Illinois, to review grant applications.

Twenty-four grant applications were received and 10 grants were awarded to scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Children’s Memorial Hospital and Loyola University in Chicago, among others.

The state would like progress reports twice a year, Kaufman said. He pointed out that other granting institutions usually want such progress reports only once a year.

“We are studying the repair and regeneration of skeletal muscle using stem cells,” said Suzanne Berry, post-doctoral research associate, who worked with Kaufman. “Specifically, we are using (mesoangioblast) stem cells isolated from vessels of healthy mice to treat mice with severe muscular dystrophy (a mouse model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy in humans),” Berry said.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy, known as DMD, is one of the most prevalent types of muscular dystrophy and is characterized by rapid progression of muscle degeneration early in life. It affects mainly males – an estimated 1 in 3,500 boys worldwide according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

“We are currently injecting these vessel-derived stem cells directly into a diseased muscle and finding that they repair damaged muscle fibers and generate new, healthy fibers,” said Berry.

According to the Governor’s press release, stem cells are cells that have the potential to develop into many different types of healthy new cells in the body. As described by the National Institutes of Health, they act like an internal repair system.