Awards & Achievements
NIH, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received a prestigious scientific grant from the National Institutes of Health ( The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) (2021-2023). The goal of this proposal is to develop Hypoxic Cell Culture System for stem cells and regenerative medicine studies.
National Science Foundation
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received a scientific grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (2020-2021) for COVID-19 research. The goal of this proposal is to develop optimal protocol for generation and expansion of specialized stem cells in compliance of good manufacturing practice (GMP) that can be used as cell therapeutics for COVID-19 induced ARDS.
National Science Foundation
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received received an I-Corps award from the National Science Foundation (2020-2021). The goal of the I-Corps™ Program is to accelerate the translation of biomedical research to the marketplace by providing training to SBIR grantees in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship.
NIH, National Cancer Institute
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received a prestigious scientific grant from the National Institutes of Health (National Cancer Institute) (2018-2021). Our recent studies demonstrated that chemically induced neural progenitors (CiNPCs) exhibited higher migratory capacity to malignant glioma D54-GM cells compared to hMSCs which was further increased by pre-exposure of these cells to D54-MG conditioned medium (GCM). Thus, CiNPCs produced by our recently developed safe, fast, reproducible, and cost-effective reprogramming approach can be efficiently used as a drug delivery vehicle for the treatment of brain tumors and/or as carriers for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents for visualization of gliomas. The goal of this SBIR phase I proposal is to investigate whether GCM pre-exposed and magnetically labeled CiNPCs could be utilized for visualization of intracranial D54-MG glioma cells by MRI.
National Science Foundation
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received a scientific grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) (2018-2021). The goal of Phase I studies is to optimize our DA induction protocol for generation of midbrain dopaminergic (DA) neural precursor cells (NPC) from dedifferentiated fat cells, clinical grade manufacturing of these DA cells and testing their therapeutic effect in several preclinical animal models of PD. Commercial products emerging from these work include: cellular therapeutics for PD and Parkinson’s research products.
NIH, National Cancer Institute
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) in collaboration with Mayo Clinic (subcontract) has received a prestigious scientific grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH, National Cancer Institute) (2018-2022). In previous studies, Dr Alexanian has demonstrated that neural progenitor cells (NPC), generated from bone marrow or adipose tissue derived MSCs, exhibited high migratory ability towards gliomas in vitro, and this tropism can be further enhanced by preconditioning these stem cells with glioma conditioned media (GCM). The goals of this SBIR phase I proposal are to investigate the in vitro tropism of these chemical induced and GCM primed NPCs to different glioma cells lines when they loaded with anti-glioma agent (Aim 1) and to test whether they can be utilized as vehicles for delivery of anti-glioma agent to intracranial human glioma xenografts in rodents (Aim 2).
I-Corps, NIH
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC (PI Arshak R Alexanian) has received NIH (NIA) grant supplement award (I-Corps, 2017) to support entrepreneurial training. The goal of the I-Corps™ Program is to accelerate the translation of biomedical research to the marketplace by providing training to SBIR grantees in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Kick-Off Workshop: April 23-26, Hyatt Regency La Jolla, San Diego, California
Closing Workshop: June 12-13, 2017 Bethesda, Marriott, Bethesda, MD
NIH, National Institute of Aging
Arshak R Alexanian, VMD, PhD, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC has received a prestigious scientific grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (2015-2017). The grant was awarded for his breakthrough work in the field of stem cell research and therapy. Recently, using a chemical genetics approach to stem cell reprogramming, Dr Alexanian has been able to generate dopaminergic neural cells from human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) derived from bone marrow or fat. The current studies focus on developing processes for clinical grade manufacturing of these dopaminergic neural cells and testing their therapeutic effect in several preclinical animal models of Parkinson's disease.
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC has received Wisconsin Small Business Innovation Award for Outstanding Achievements from The Center for Technology Commercialization of Wisconsin 2016 (www.wisconsininnovationawards.com).
SBIR Advance (Wisconsin)
Cell Reprogramming & Therapeutics LLC has received SBIR Advance Grant-matching Award to support the commercialization of innovations, (https://www.wisconsinsbir.org), 2016-2017.
