LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Dennis Roop, Ph.D., shared his journey in science with the Gates Summer Internship Program Class of 2020 during their Final Day Program, highlighting the press conference at which he accepted his appointment from the University of Colorado in 2006.
This was a year that was not easily controlled or directed. It was hard to shape or work with; and it was hard to treat, relieve or cure. For the world and for the Gates Center, this was the true definition of an “intractable” year. Yet this was a year of significant accomplishment. We focused intensely and productively, inwardly and outwardly with our Gates Center members on basic science, advanced along the research continuum and moved toward clinical trials and patient benefit. One of our member’s Joseph Brzezinski, Ph.D.’s visually stunning image of an adult mouse retina on this annual report cover demonstrates our emphasis on basic science. Overall, in spite of collaborating via Zoom, virtual workspaces, and reduced-capacity laboratories, we never lost sight of Charles Gates’ ambitious vision to work together to accelerate the translation of scientific breakthroughs into clinical practice. “I have never been prouder of our campus,” University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Chancellor Don Elliman said repeatedly throughout the year.
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Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine
Because of previous groundwork, the Gates Center and the CU Anschutz campus achieved a remarkable milestone, years in the making. In 2014, the Center planned for the key missing link in the creation of the most robust biotech and healthcare ecosystem in Colorado history. As a result, thanks to our campus partners and private sector benefactors, we launched a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in 2015. The establishment of the Gates Manufacturing Facility laid the foundation for working with on and off-campus investigators to translate innovative research discoveries into safe and effective cell therapy and protein biologic products for human clinical trials. On July 30, 2020, the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility in collaboration with the CU Anschutz campus reached the milestone: •
we manufactured cancer fighting chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T cells) developed by faculty in the CU School of Medicine; • we launched a clinical trial at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital; • and we enrolled patients with no other viable therapeutic options.
