Update: Top stem cell scientist Svendsen leaving UW-Madison for California
Todd Finkelmeyer
June 3, 2009
Highly regarded UW-Madison stem cell researcher Clive Svendsen is heading to Los Angeles to become director of the new Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute.
Svendsen, who is co-director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at UW-Madison, will start his new position on Dec. 1.
“It was nothing lacking from Wisconsin,” Svendsen said of his decision to leave UW-Madison. “This was a remarkable opportunity. Really, there wasn’t much they could do to keep me — it was a very spectacular offer.”
Svendsen, who arrived in Madison in January of 2000, said he also had strong personal reasons for wanting to head out west. The native of Sidmouth, England, noted that his wife, who is pregnant, is from Los Angeles and has family in California.
“So even if (the UW) had been able to match the offer, which they couldn’t, I had already decided to move for family reasons anyway,” said Svendsen, who refused to talk about the financial details surrounding his new position. “I want to make it clear that it wasn’t because of a lack of anything here in Madison. Ten years is a good amount of time to be in one place and I’m ready for change and a new challenge, and it really is a big challenge.”
Tim Kamp, also co-director of UW-Madison’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, said he was happy for Svendsen.
“We owe Clive a great deal of gratitude for all the contributions he has made here, both administratively with the stem cell center and with the scientific progress he’s made and the many researchers he has helped train,” said Kamp. “I think this is just another indication that Wisconsin is a highly regarded university for stem cell research. Clive won’t be the only one who moves on.”
Svendsen, a UW-Madison professor of neurology and anatomy, has performed ground breaking research focused on modeling and treating neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) using a combination of stem cells and powerful growth factors.
“I’ll still keep the research going and my focus will still be ALS and Parkinson’s disease,” said Svendsen. “So I keep my research lab and will keep my grants going. And then I’ll have many more responsibilities because I’ll be running the new institute.”
It is not yet clear how many people from Svendsen’s lab will leave UW-Madison to join the researcher in Los Angeles. He said he and 14 co-workers will head to California on Thursday to check out the massive Cedars-Sinai medical complex. Svendsen said about 10 of the 18 workers in his lab are seriously considering making the move.
“Keeping as many of those people with me is very important for consistency reasons,” said Svendsen.
By moving his lab across the country, Svendsen said he will take roughly $500,000 per year in federal research money with him. Other research dollars Svendsen helped bring in will stay at UW-Madison due to collaborative studies with others on campus.
Svendsen’s colleagues were sad to see him go, but said they understand the realities of the business.
“This is indicative of the quality of our programs here,” said Paul DeLuca, vice dean for research and graduate studies at the School of Medicine and Public Health. “The fact that we’re able to have our faculty rise to the absolute top nationally is a measure of the effort and quality that we have here. It was just an opportunity that was so spectacular, he had to go. So it’s a bittersweet conclusion, but we’re parting on more than friendly terms with Clive.”
Added Kamp: “Clive is a valued colleague and we’re all disappointed to see him move. But it’s the reality of academic medicine. People move and he had a pretty remarkable offer. It was a disappointment, but he’s leaving on good terms and I expect long-term collaboration.”
According to Cedars-Sinai officials, the new Regenerative Medicine Institute will unite scientists from a range of fields with specialist clinicians, physician scientists and translational scientists across multiple medical specialties to translate fundamental stem cell studies to therapeutic regenerative medicine.
Svendsen said he was attracted to Cedars-Sinai because of the medical center’s strong commitment to translational medicine and its ability to move research from the lab to the patient as quickly as possible.
“Cedars-Sinai has always been known more for its clinical side, and now it’s investing very heavily in the science side,” said Svendsen, who wouldn’t divulge the estimated yearly operating budget for the new institute. “That’s very exciting.”
Svendsen said he will focus most of his energy on his work at UW-Madison until he starts his new post in December. In fact, he plans to move his lab from the Waisman Center to the new Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research facility next month. And even after he moves to California, Svendsen plans to keep in touch with the many scientists at UW-Madison who he is currently collaborating with in shared research projects.
Svendsen said deans at the medical school also have offered him a non-paying appointment within UW-Madison.
“I may even keep a very small lab with some people working here,” said Svendsen.
DeLuca said he plans to start a search for another co-director of UW-Madison’s Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center.
“The reason I appointed both Tim and Clive is that running a center like that takes a lot of effort and there’s a real advantage of having a partnership,” said DeLuca. “So we’ll be enthusiastic about trying to either appoint or recruit a new co-director.”
Svendsen has worked with renowned UW-Madison stem cell biologist Jamie Thomson on several projects over the past decade.
UW-Madison has been viewed as a global leader in stem cell science since Thomson first isolated human embryonic stem cells here in 1998. The discovery was significant because these stem cells are capable of transforming into cells from any tissue in the body. Scientists say these so-called pluripotent cells hold the key to discovering the causes and cures for many human ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, juvenile diabetes, blindness and spinal cord injuries.
Anti-abortion groups and social conservatives are strongly opposed to this type of research, however, as days-old embryos — most of which come from fertility clinics that are set to be thrown away — are destroyed to create the stem cell lines.
In 2007, UW-Madison’s Thomson and Junying Yu, and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka discovered induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which are skin cells reprogrammed back to an embryonic-like state. Some believed this discovery meant the days of stem cell research being synonymous with controversy were over.
While that might some day be true, the world’s top researchers say more study of these skin cells is needed to ensure they don’t differ from embryonic stem cells in unexpected ways.
http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/453585
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