Cambridge, Mass. (August 7, 2008) – Chad Cowan, Ph.D., Stowers Medical Institute Assistant Investigator and Assistant Professor with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), has collaborated with colleagues at HSCI to create a collection of 20 disease-specific stem cell lines. Published in the August 6 online edition of the journal Cell, the project created cell lines using the new induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS) technique. The cell lines carry the genes or genetic components for 10 different diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Type I diabetes, Huntington’s disease, and Down syndrome, among others. The cell lines will be available to scientists around the world, representing a significant advancement in the study of disease origin. Learn more about this discovery on the Harvard Web site or read the paper in its entirety on the Cell Web site.

About the Stowers Medical Institute
      The Stowers Medical Institute was founded by Jim and Virginia Stowers of Kansas City. Mr. Stowers founded the multi-billion-dollar American Century Companies in 1958. Inspired by personal experiences with cancer, he and Mrs. Stowers founded the Stowers Institute for Medical Research (SIMR) in Kansas City in 1994. Repeated efforts to ban early stem cell research in the state of Missouri motivated the Stowers to create and endow with their personal funds a new entity, the Stowers Medical Institute (SMI), in 2005 to fund early stem cell research outside of Missouri. The Stowers’ funding of SMI is in addition to the $2 billion combined endowments they have created for SIMR.