Year: 2023

USC Stem Cell scientist Justin Ichida has learned to inhabit two worlds: the university where his lab makes discoveries, and the companies that can help commercialize these discoveries into new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. The first of these potential treatments now has the potential to enter clinical development for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),…Continue Reading Research from Justin Ichida’s lab advances toward clinical development for ALS, following a license agreement between companies Takeda and AcuraStem

Even though neurodegenerative diseases often strike in middle age or later, patients could have structural differences in their brains that arise before birth. In a new study in Cell Reports, USC Stem Cell scientists used both patient-derived nerve cells and laboratory mice to demonstrate that the most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)…Continue Reading ALS and frontotemporal dementia show origins in utero, according to evidence from mice and patient-derived stem cells

Each year in the U.S., 5,000 patients receive a diagnosis of ALS, an incurable neurodegenerative disease that will likely kill them within two to five years. In the quest to find a cure for these patients, a team of researchers led by USC Stem Cell scientist Justin Ichida has identified two promising avenues for developing…Continue Reading USC Stem Cell-led studies point the way to broadly effective treatments for ALS

In March 2020, Justin Ichida, PhD, was appointed to a prestigious endowed professorship at Keck School of Medicine of USC through a generous philanthropic gift from the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation. On October 20, 2022, more than two years later, an appreciative group of scientific leaders, colleagues, philanthropists, family, and friends were at last…Continue Reading Justin Ichida honored as the inaugural John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation Associate Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at USC