Director's Update


November 2009

I am grateful to the loyal supporters of Boston Biomedical Research Institute as well as to our new friends for your strong support and encouragement during the past year.

Your support has enabled our scientists and their postdoctoral trainees to make important
discoveries that deepen our understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms of stem cell growth and tissue regeneration, cell movement, cellular and extracellular signaling, and the biochemistry of protein interactions in the immune system and muscle contraction. These advances have opened the doors for our scientists to develop innovative, early stage drug and stem cell therapeutic approaches for cancer metastasis, HIV and TB infections, muscular dystrophy and Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

We welcome visitors who have a personal interest in learning about our research on a spectrum of degenerative diseases that may have directly affected you, your family or your friends — neurodegenerative diseases, muscular dystrophies, muscle injury and aging, diabetes, heart attacks and vascular damage, among others. Such diseases cause great personal suffering and a resulting loss of quality of life for patients and can deeply affect the lives of loved ones. Personal experience can be a powerful motivator for supporting biomedical research. My daughter Laura suffered serious brain damage at birth. She has now grown into an independent young woman with many gifts, but not without great pain and difficulty. There are no treatments at present for Laura’s brain injuries, just as there are no treatments for tissue damage incurred in Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s patients, as well as those coping with muscular dystrophies, heart attack and stroke. However, early stage therapeutic research to develop treatments for cell damage and to regenerate tissues with adult stem cells holds great promise.

My experience as the parent of a child with brain injuries has proven to be a determinative factor in my pursuit of research in our Degenerative Disease and Regenerative Biology Program. I am particularly excited by our new collaborative research with the Wellstone Center for Cooperative Muscular Dystrophy Research. I am convinced that our research will have direct application to the treatment of a diversity of muscle diseases and conditions that cause muscle damage and neurodegeneration, including my daughter’s brain damage.

I want to thank all our donors for your support of the Institute during these difficult economic times. Your generous donations help provide our talented cadre of newly recruited investigators with resources and tools to launch their research programs, and to assist our established scientists in their continued success. Your ongoing generosity is vital to our future as a leader in biomedical research.

Charles P. Emerson, Jr., Ph.D.