Annual Fund

Under the leadership of Center Director Dr. Thomas Rando, the annual fund provides stability for our center as we pursue our mission of revolutionizing the treatment of disease through personalized cellular therapies and regenerative medicine.

Rando aims to accelerate promising research towards the clinic by investing in cutting-edge technologies and reducing roadblocks to the translation of fundamental research into innovative therapies. Established as a campus-wide initiative in 2005, the center’s close partnerships with the UCLA Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Nursing, Public Health, Dentistry, Law and the College of Letters and Science makes it a leading research enterprise, as well as a hub of innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Today, our membership comprises more than 250 investigators and clinicians representing more than 55 academic departments, schools and institutes. Our world-renowned researchers have trained 385 undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and clinical fellows through our training programs.

The annual fund supports our investment in critical technologies and equipment for our shared resources and facilities, which enable our scientists to rapidly advance stem cell therapies to the clinic. Along with support from expert technical staff, these resources provide our researchers with next-generation technologies such as high-throughput sequencing that can sequence hundreds of millions of DNA molecules at a time, flow cytometers that can analyze and sort cell populations and advanced microscopes that can visualize cells and tissues 100 times smaller than a speck of dust.