Awards and Honors I: October 9, 2009

Posted 11:45 AM, October 9, 2009, by jaruiz

Joseph Wu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (cardiology) and radiology, was one of four Stanford scientists to receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Transformative R01 Award designed to "support exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms."

According to a recent Office of Communication & Public Affairs article, Dr. Wu's award will support his research regarding "ways to keep the body from rejecting human embryonic stem cells. For many years, researchers assumed that these undifferentiated building blocks would be ignored by the body's defense system. Wu's recent research in mice shows that this is not the case. 'It's getting harder and harder to believe that these cells are immunoprivileged,' said Wu. 'Now we need to know what to do about it.'" He will use his award to devise ways to "coax the immune system to tolerate the foreign cells, allowing them to regenerate or heal damaged tissues" (from "Stanford Nabs 13 Top NIH Awards for High-Stakes Research" by Krista Conger, Erin Digitale, Bruce Goldman, David Orenstein, Ruthann Richter, and Tracie White; download PDF at Stanford Nabs 13 Top NIH Awards for High-Stakes Research.pdf). To learn more about Dr. Wu's research, please access the Cardiovascular Gene and Cell Therapy Lab website at http://mips.stanford.edu/research/lab?lab%5fid=2883.