CRCP and CARE researchers win fund with a regenerative biology proyect.

After three months of a complex selection process, where 84 projects participed, the Planning and Development Ministery, MIDEPLAN, announced the five winners of the Millenium Core in Natural and Exact Science. The seventh version of this contest will support groups that will perform researches of border in biology, mathematics, astronomy and chemistry.

The project director, Dr. Juan Larraín, who will travel this month to the Vatican to receive the 2008 Pío XI Medal from hands of the Pope Benedicto XVI, for his work on embryonic development and regeneration, says that obtaining of this Core was a very awaited news. "This year the information of who had earned the prize, delayed more than ever, for what we were very anxious", he comments.

And like waiting for months was’nt enough, Dr. Larraín says that the day in which they sent an e-mail announcing him that he had won the prize, this indicated another project, so he had to continue waiting for the confirmation. "That could mean that the name of the winner or the project’s was wrong, and another half an hour passed until they confirmed us that we were the winners ", explains.

Though most of the researchers of this Core belong to the Cellular Regeneration and Pathology Center, CRCP, and to the Aging and Regeneration Center, CARE, their work will officially begin in 2009.

The key could be in amphibians.

Most pathologys are related to the death or loss of some tissues, for what regeneration can be the key for the treatment of many diseases.

It’s known that exist adult cells, called main or stem, that in response to the damage, activate themselfs and produce the regeneration. This is a common mechanism to most part of animals, but there are some of them as amphibians that, unlike the mammals and the man, show it presenting a great regenerative capacity that turns them into interesting objects of study.

Of all tissues the one that presents less repair capacity is the nervous, and this group of researchers will focus on its study, specifically, on why the neuronal regeneration in mammals is so inefficient.

This project’s value is that it will allow to extend and enrich the work that there has been performed in isolated way by each of these five scientists, that today they have complementary research lines, that will allow them to approach the regeneration subject of a more integral of way.

This way, Dr. Larraín that this years has focused his work in getting to know the genetic and molecular mechanisms that allow to frog tadpoles, Xenopus, to regenerate the spinal marrow, will extend his research incorporating new amphibians species as salamanders, with a greater regenerative capacity.

Doctors Maria Paz Marzolo and Francisca Bronfman will study the factors that intervene in the neurons development and regeneration in amphibians and mammals known as neurotrophic mechanisms (substances that regulate the nervous system’s repair), particularly, comparing how they intervene in the repair of amphibians and mammals tissues.

Specifically Dr. Bonfman will investigate the neurotrophins relationship with the regeneration. She will work with in vitro culture models of the Nervous Central System cells (sea horse, brain, marrow) and of the Nervous Peripheral System (sympathetic and sensory), that will allow to see detailed response of the neuron against the damage.

While the Dr. Marzolo, who in addition is the project’s subdirector, will study another group of neurotrophic substances known as lipoproteins, seeing how they behave in mammals and amphibians when these suffer a cut in its marrow. To this, adds her work with transgenic rats, that will allow to see what happens in the organism when these substances dont express.

Dr. Felipe Court will study the regeneration processes in mice and finally, Dr. Alejandro Erices, who today is in the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm, Sweden, will work with main neural cells.

The Winners

1. Millenium Cientific Core in Regenerative Biology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, directed by Dr. Juan Larrain.
2. Neural Morphogenesis Core of the Chile Universisty, directed by Dr. Miguel Concha.
3. Millenium Core in Mathematic Theory of Quantum Magnetic Systems and Classics of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, directed by Dr. Rafael Benguria.
4. Millenium Core in Molecular Engineering and Supramolecular Chemistry for Catalisys, Electrocatalisys, Remedial and Energy Conversion of the Andres Bello National Univerity, directed by Dr. Ramiro Arratia.
5. Millenium Core for Milky-way of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, directed by Dr. Marcio Catelan.

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