Verfaillie, Catherine

CATHERINE VERFAILLIE IS a full professor in the Department of Oncology at Katholieke Universit—eit Leuven in Belgium, where she leads the Stamcel Instituut te Leuven. From 1996 to 2006, she was the director of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota. Much of her research has focused on stem cell biology, including the proliferation, differentiation, and lineage commitment of healthy embryonic cells. During her tenure at the University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute, she and her team also evaluated a number of therapies for congenital disorders such as hemophilia, along with cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and ischémie disorders, disorders of the liver and pancreas, and chronic myelogenous leukemia.

In 2002, Verfaillie published what was viewed as a groundbreaking study in Nature on multipo—tent adult progenitor cells, or MAPCs, indicating that she had found a population of cells in the bone marrow of adult mice that proved capable of [Page 604]growing into most types of tissue. Most adult cells are able to form into only a narrow range of tissues, and the discovery of these MAPCs seemed to offer new horizons in stem cell therapy. Verfaillie's work was immediately seized on by opponents of embryonic stem cell research, who argued that if adult stem cells could be used in research, there was no need to use the embryonic cells.

In 2005, and again in 2007, the British journal New Scientist conducted investigations into the 2002 Nature paper, and in early 2007, it reported that they had found data duplicated in at least two scientific papers by Verfaillie and her team—for instance, using the same image in two separate papers, purporting to show two separate types of protein reactions. As a result of the New Scientist investigation, the University of Minnesota conducted its own internal probe of Verfaillie's study and has distanced themselves from her work.

From her new post in Belgium, Verfaillie says that the data duplication was “a mistake” but continues to stand by her 2002 findings. Now, the Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cell (MAPC) technology, originally developed by Dr. Catherine Verfaillie and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, is licensed exclusively to Athersys, Inc., based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine is actively developing therapeutics based on the Multipo—tent Adult Progenitor Cell. The company itself has numerous collaborations with CSCRM investigators and institutions to advance its product lines to the clinical use.