Center for Modeling Pediatric Disease

The Center for Modeling Pediatric Disease is a state-of-the-art shared resource with the mission to automate stem cell research and provide an unprecedented repository of patient-derived stem cells for disease modeling and preclinical study. The system is contained in a BSLIIA enclosure for sample protection, easily adapted for a variety of assay protocols, and able to accommodate large scale production and handling. As the CMPD continues to develop under the direction of Dr. Sunita D’Souza, investigators will have increasing opportunities to leverage this phenomenal resource

The ability to faithfully model pediatric disease is central to the translational discovery process. The CMPD will provide investigators with the resources and technologies necessary to create reprogrammed stem cell populations from patient samples, expand these into appropriate cell types for further investigation, and bank them for future interrogation. The pace and scale of iPSC generation is daunting for individual labs, but with this dedicated facility, St. Jude investigators, and global collaborators, will be able to generate the materials and tools needed to explore disease mechanisms and evaluate preclinical and clinical approaches.