Three Northwestern professors received a total of $3.5 million in state grants that will help place Illinois at the forefront of stem cell research.

Mary Hendrix, a professor of pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, received $2 million; Guillermo Ameer, a professor of biomedical engineering, received $870,000 and Xiaozhong Wang, a professor of biochemistry and molecular and cell biology, received $565,000 from the State of Illinois to study the potential of human stem cells to reverse the progression of diseases.

The grants – all part of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s plan to award $10 million for stem cell research – were awarded to researchers and hospitals across the state April 24. The grants make Illinois the fourth state in the nation and the first in the Midwest to commit public funds to the research. New Jersey, California and Connecticut have similar funds.

Stem cells are unspecialized cells that can renew themselves through cell division, according to the National Institute of Health. Under certain conditions, they can be forced to become cells with special functions, according to the group’s Web site.

Hendrix, who is also president and scientific director of the Children’s Memorial Research Center in Chicago, plans to use the $2 million grant to determine if stem cells can reverse certain diseases such as muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease, according to a press release.

Ameer will use the grant money to regenerate broken blood vessels with stem cells. He said stem cells can counteract problems that arise from using artificial materials that sometimes cause blood clotting.

Ameer said he does not anticipate many objections to his research because he uses adult stem cells rather than embryonic stem cells.

“I think a lot of people are misinformed,” he said. “Adult stem cells are part of our body. Even with embryonic stem cells, nobody is killing stem cells or harvesting babies solely for their stem cells.”

Wang will use the grant to study the genetic makeup of stem cells to determine how they differentiate or transform into a specific cell type.

He said this knowledge will help people learn how to propagate stem cells for medicinal purposes.

“Stem cells can become any cell type, but this can also be a problem,” Wang said. “Having so many cell types would be useless for therapeutic reasons.”

Wang said people have misconceptions about the use of stem cells. He uses mice stem cells in his research because they are similar to those of humans, he said.

“Anybody who works with human stem cells has very strict guidelines,” he said. “The scientific community needs to make it feasible, but society needs to make the judgment.”

Many students said they approve of stem cell research at the university, but McCormick senior Mike Duffy said he supports it only if researchers refrain from using embryonic cells.

“Adult stem cells and stem cells from mice don’t bring ethical dilemmas,” he said. “But embryonic stem cells do.”

Medill freshman Jacob Wertz said he was pleased to hear Illinois was following the efforts of California, his home state.

“It’s encouraging for the university to be at the cutting edge of scientific research,” he said. “I hope the kind of work the professors are doing here will make the federal government follow suit.”

Reach Ketul Patel at [email protected].