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With a generous gift from an anonymous donor, the Institute for Cell Engineering was created at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in January 2001, its purpose to focus and strengthen research efforts whose goal at one time likely would have been described as science fiction. ICE supports and houses scientists working to understand how cells' fates are determined and to harness that information in order to select, modify and reprogram human cells. While basic research will be the hallmark of ICE science, the ultimate goal is to mold engineered human cells into therapeutic transplants for a wide range of currently devastating diseases, including Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), diabetes and heart failure.

After the 1998 announcements by researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin of their independent and successful isolation and culturing of human pluripotent stem cells -- primitive "precursor" cells capable of becoming virtually any of the cell types found in the body -- the world has waited wide-eyed for a veritable revolution in medicine. Since the cells' discovery, researchers have been studying how these cells "decide" what to become, a key step in capturing their potential to rebuild tissues lost to disease.  

ICE was envisioned to provide an unprecedented academic infrastructure and environment to accelerate the pace of discovery in a variety of stem cell related fields, leading the world in the effort to realize the potential of stem cells in medicine. Today, ICE researchers are studying many types of cells for clues to differentiation -- how cells specialize -- and insight into how organisms as complex as mice and humans develop so precisely.

The Institute occupies two floors of laboratories, offices and resource facilities in the new, state-of-the-art research building on Broadway, completed in early 2004. ICE has already launched core resource facilities, recruited new faculty, formed four primary research programs, awarded pilot funds and established affiliated research programs.