Central MA Life Sciences Report 21
AbbVie, a national biotech company
headquartered in Illinois, with offices in
Worcester, where it developed Humira,
the most financially successful drug in
history.
Available and emerging technology
will change how researchers can
understand disease and analyze data,
said Schwartz Sterman. She estimates
it might be the biggest moment in
scientific research since the Human
Genome Project.
World leader in gene therapy
UMass Chan Medical School in
Worcester may be the flagship for
innovative research in the region as one
of the leading recipients of National
Institutes of Health grant funding in
the state, even when accounting for
the amount of money Greater Boston
companies and universities pull.
In fiscal year 2022, the school
received $180 million across 349 NIH
grants, according to NIH data compiled
by the Worcester Business Journal
Research Department. That total far
surpasses any other institution in
Central Massachusetts. By comparison,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with the
second highest number of grants at 15,
pulled in $4.6 million in NIH funding.
Gene therapy, a division of medical
science aiming to repair or modify cells
to produce a therapeutic effect in the
treatment of disease, is a thriving area
of research at UMass Chan. Guangping
Gao, co-director of the Li Weibo
Institute for Rare Diseases Research,
director of the Horae Gene Therapy
Center, and professor of microbiology
and physiological systems at UMass
Chan, has been involved in gene therapy
research for decades. Gao cited the
15 faculty members in numerous labs
working with a multitude of postdocs
and technicians as a basis for saying that
the medical school is a world leader in
gene therapy.
"When you add it all together, I don't
think anywhere else in the country has
this. It's the next generation of gene
therapy medicine," said Gao.
Annette Schwartz
Sterman (right) leads
immunology discovery
at AbbVie in Worcester.
Continued on page 22
