Dr. Michael A. Friedman, M.D., the president and chief executive officer of Duarte, Calif-based City of Hope has been appointed to California's Stem Cell Oversight Committee by state Treasurer Phil Angelides.

The 27-member commission was created by California's Proposition 71 on last November's ballot which set aside $3 billion for stem cell research.

Friedman, a former acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration as well as a former associate director of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, was selected as a representative of a non-profit academic research association.

“For patients and their families, cures for cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases cannot come soon enough,” said Dr. Friedman. “As an institution, City of Hope is impatient about advancing medical science to improve and save lives. I am honored to have been selected to the ICOC and privileged to work alongside its members in what is arguably one of the most promising research efforts in recent history.”

Friedman said the city of Hope, which he joined in 2003, " has a longstanding tradition of scientific breakthroughs - including such innovations as recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibodies technologies - that have transformed basic science research into lifesaving applications and revolutionized medicine. Recombinant DNA led to the development of the first laboratory-produced human insulin, while monoclonal antibodies form the basis of some of today's most promising drugs for cancer and other serious diseases."

He also noted that City of Hope is 'one of the first medical centers in the nation to successfully perform bone marrow transplantation for leukemia," and that today it "maintains one of the largest and most successful stem cell transplant and developmental biology programs in the world. 

"City of Hope researchers are building on the institution’s pioneering stem cell work by developing stem cell transplantation procedures for other types of diseases, including HIV/AIDS," Friedman said.

Originally created to combat tuberculosis, The City of Hope was founded as the Los Angeles Sanatorium in 1913 by Jewish Consumptive Relief Association of Southern California.
        —Donald H. Harrison