Medicine Research Award 2007. BioMed Central
Medical Research Award goes to Adult Stem Cell Scientists at a Kansas not-for-profit Organization
Wichita, KS March 20, 2008 – Scientists at the Bio-Communications Research Institute, a division of the Center for the Improvement of Human Functioning, received a prestigious award for a scientific article about its recent stem cell discovery. The scientific journal article entitled “Endometrial regenerative cells: A novel stem cell population” received BioMed Central’s Research Article of the Year in Medicine Award sponsored by Microsoft Research. Dr. Xiaolong Meng, the first author of the article and Associate Director of BCRI was in London, England yesterday to receive the award at the Royal Society of Medicine. The paper was published in November 2007 in the Journal of Translational Medicine. The award recognizes excellence in research that has been made universally accessible through open access publication in one of BioMed Central’s peer reviewed scientific journals.
Dr. Neil Riordan, Research Director of BCRI and senior author of the paper led the research team, composed of U.S. and Canadian scientists who identified and characterized a new type of stem cell that can be reproducibly isolated from menstrual blood collected from healthy women.
“We are extremely proud of the international recognition our scientists and collaborators are receiving for the discovery of this new type of stem cell,” said Dr. Riordan, “We believe that these adult stem cells offer a novel alternative to stem cells which are fraught with scientific and ethical issues.”