Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Dr. Roberto Bolli and again, Roberto, one of our very, very first Bucks for Brains professors
is an international leader, an international leader, whose work is focused on the innovative
concept of using the heart's own stem cells to repair itself when it's damaged. One of
the difficulties has been that Bolli's work has been limited by his ability to locally
grow a patient's cardiac stem cells and this requires something that we haven't had and
that's an FDA compliant facility to adhere to rigorous standards referred to as the current
good manufacturing practices. So today we're here to announce that our partner, kind of
a new partner, but an old partner in many ways, the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence,
is stepping forward once again and as a new entity. We had a wonderful press announcement
on our Belknap campus a few weeks ago about funding for a chair in Judaic studies and
so, again, the Jewish Heritage Foundation is stepping forward the $2 million gift so
that Dr. Bolli is able to purchase the equipment and renovate the space necessary to establish
the good manufacturing practices facility at the University of Louisville within the
Institute of Molecular Cardiology. Everybody knows Dr. Bolli's work focuses on using a
person's own cardiac stem cells to help the heart repair itself. That's amazing. The other
thing you should know is his work is world renowned. Think about that for a moment. Here
we are in Louisville, Kentucky, and we have a doctor who I share the podium with tonight,
who is world renowned for this procedure. Our grants committee went through a rigorous
process, again, most of them are here, and it was very clear what we needed to do. So
as Dr. Ramsey said, today we are announcing a $2 million gift from the Jewish Heritage
Fund for Excellence to assist Dr. Bolli with purchasing and establishing a dedicated state-of-the-art,
FDA approved facility for producing various types of stem cells he needs to continue this
ground breaking work. It really is about changing lives because the biggest thing we can do
in the field of medicine is take things from the proverbial bench to the bedside and that's
what Roberto has done over a long period of time. The concept is unique, but the application
is even more unique, and the ability to have a self-contained GMP, good manufacturing process,
facility is absolutely mission critical. It can't be used for other things. The FDA requires
that this be dedicated just to this clinical trial, but this will allow us to move beyond
just FDA approved clinical trials and into clinical practice. This is really a big deal.
It's much more than another NIH grant. This is a momentous time for our program in cardiovascular
regeneration because it gives us the one piece of the puzzle that we did not have. We have
built a state of the art, leading nationally, renowned program in regenerative cardiology.
We have supported this with $20 million of NIH grants including a program project grant
for $13 and a half million, a corporal led by Dr. Bhatnagar that was mostly devoted to
stem cell research for $12 million, and a very prestigious grant called CCTRN. It's
cardiovascular cell therapy research network, CCTRN. It's an NIH-funded network of seven
institutions that do phase one, phase two clinical trials of noble stem cell therapists.
It's a very prestigious elite club. It includes places such as Stanford, Texas and we are
very, very privileged and proud to be one of those seven institutions. We have five
more years to go in that CCTRN grant and again this is a clinical research network. So we
have built of old ingredients in addition to many other individual other one grants,
again totaling over $20 million in NIH funds, to support our program in cardiovascular regeneration.
We have an outstanding cardio faculty and we have contacted sipium, that is the phase
one study of stem cells in patients with heart failure due to heart attacks. There are two
heroes that are here today that are really the story of what we're here today about.
To me, a hero is someone who spends his life doing things that better the lives of many
people and Dr. Ramsey turned the university into this awesome research university. The
just, the health benefits that are coming from this are awesome and will continue to
come from it. But also think of the economic asset UofL is to our community and to our
state. And Dr. Bolli is one of these rare people who has will and discipline. And he
had this dream of taking, of having your body heal itself the way God made us. Do it naturally.
My stem cells, I take no, they are my own stem cells. I don't take rejection medicine.
This is just such a beautiful idea.