News

The Lundquist Institute will have a float in the 2022 Rose Parade called “Impositive” to celebrate its 70th Anniversary. The float is sponsored by Impositivity Media and Emmaus Life Sciences and will feature riders whose lives have been saved by groundbreaking research conducted at the Institute. The Lundquist Investigators responsible for the life-saving therapies, Dr. Emil Kakkis and Dr. Yutaka Niihara, will also be riding on the float along with their former patients and Institute PhD students.

The Lundquist Institute’s Investigator Eli Ipp, MD, and a multi-center team of investigators have evaluated the performance of the EyeArt AI system in a study published in JAMA Open Network. Dr. Ipp and his co-investigators found that the accuracy of the EyeArt AI system was high in detecting mtmDR (sensitivity 96% and specificity 88%) and vtDR (sensitivity 97% and specificity 90%).

The Lundquist Institute’s investigators have developed a critically needed mouse model of Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T), a currently untreatable, rare childhood disorder that results in a severe and progressive loss of motor coordination and premature death by 30 years of age. The disorder is caused by recessive genetic mutations in the A-T mutated (ATM) gene that prevent the production of an important DNA repair pathway protein referred to as ATM.

The Lundquist Institute’s Male Contraceptive Efficacy Trial has received an additional $3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand its work and recruit 120+ more couples. This NIH funding will bring the total number of couples involved in the study to over 400.

LOS ANGELES (September 24, 2021) — The Lundquist Institute (TLI) announced that it has received a generous $5 million, 5-year grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) that will allow its PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and clinical fellows to pursue careers in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.

LOS ANGELES — The Lundquist Institute announced that, in a new study published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, its Investigators and research colleagues at other institutions have found that passive immunization by infusion of COVID-19 convalescent plasma is not a viable strategy to reduce the severity of illness. Plasma from recovered patients who have already developed antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 is often the most readily available source of antibodies early in epidemics or emerging infections.

LOS ANGELES — BioLabs LA at The Lundquist Institute, a co-working and incubator facility for high-potential bioscience start-ups, has reached 100% capacity ahead of schedule. This critical milestone demonstrates the strong demand for entrepreneurial startup opportunities in the bioscience sphere in Los Angeles. 

LOS ANGELES — Today The Lundquist Institute announced that its investigators contributed data from several studies, including data on Hispanics, African-Americans and East Asians, to the international MAGIC collaboration, composed of more than 400 global academics, who conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis led by the University of Exeter. Now published in Nature Genetics, their findings demonstrate that expanding research into different ancestries yields more and better results, as well as ultimately benefitting global patient care.

Unlike the normal Fallopian tube (left), the "cilia-less" Fallopian tube fails to pick up ovulated eggs, leading to female infertility (right). Art by Tingting Xie.

LOS ANGELES — Today, The Lundquist Institute announced that Wei Yan, MD, PhD, and his research group have solved a longstanding mystery and scientific debate about the mechanism underlying the gamete and embryo transport within the Fallopian tube. Using a mouse model where the animals lacked motile cilia in the oviduct, Dr.

LOS ANGELES — The Lundquist Institute today announced that one of its spinoff start-up companies, Vitalex Biosciences, founded by researcher Dr. Ashraf Ibrahim, is producing an antibody that stems the spread of mucormycosis, a deadly fungal infection with an overall mortality rate of 50% and higher. Mucormycosis is an emerging infection caused by exposure to mucor, a mold commonly found in soil, plants, manure, and decaying fruits and vegetables.