California’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has approved $5.7 million for a USC researcher to help move promising stem cell-based therapies from the laboratory research phase to clinical trials in people.

CIRM approved a $5.7 million Research Leadership Award to foster the recruitment of Andrew P. McMahon from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC. McMahon, director of the stem cell center, plans to use the award to study ways to repair and regenerate kidney tissue. Research Leadership Awards are intended to support robust and innovative stem cell research programs of the most promising researchers newly recruited to California.

Keck School of Medicine Dean Carmen A. Puliafito hailed the news, calling it “a powerful affirmation of the high quality of the stem cell research USC performs and of our place in the vanguard of regenerative medicine.”

Announced on July 27, CIRM awarded $150 million in grants to researchers in both academia and industry who have been working on projects that represent the best possible chances of producing therapies for deadly and disabling diseases and disorders.