Jan Nolta Receives 2022 Chancellor’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Innovation
The University of California, Davis, announced the recipients of the 2022 Chancellor’s Innovation Awards at an in-person event on June 16. The awards recognize faculty, community partners and industry leaders developing innovative solutions to improve the lives of others and address important needs in our global society.
“Innovation is at the heart of our mission at UC Davis,” said Chancellor Gary S. May. “We are driven to take action by creating new inventions beyond the boundaries of our campus. These award winners are groundbreakers who improve society as their innovations move out of the lab and into the world.”
The awards include Lifetime Achievement in Innovation, Innovator of the Year and Innovative Community Partner.
Lifetime Achievement Awards in Innovation
Jan Nolta, Ph.D.
Jan Nolta, professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy and Internal Medicine, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Innovation. This award recognizes researchers whose career accomplishments include innovations leading to a long-term positive impact on the lives of others and who are an inspiring influence for other innovators.
Nolta serves as the director of the Stem Cell Program and the UC Davis Gene Therapy Center in the Institute for Regenerative Cures at UC Davis Health. Nolta has gained reputation as a prolific scientist with over three decades of experience in human stem cells, gene therapy and clinical trial development. She has been a tireless contributor to the field of regenerative medicine-related cures for a spectrum of diseases and injuries. She started her career helping to develop stem cell gene therapy treatments for “bubble baby disease.”
Over the past few years, Nolta has been collaborating with an interdisciplinary team including UC Davis Health professors Mehrdad Abedi, Joseph Tuscano and Gerhard Bauer to pioneer the California CAR-T program for cancer patients. To advance this innovation, Nolta’s group is cultivating potent cancer killer cells to treat leukemia and lymphoma in relapsed patients. The approach may tackle kidney, ovarian and bladder cancers down the line. The team is helping to facilitate change that would drive the cost of CAR-T therapies down while increasing accessibility so that lifesaving, cutting edge therapies can be provided to all patients in an equitable manner.
Nolta’s current research is focused on developing therapies that will use mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to deliver factors for treating Huntington’s disease and other disorders and injuries. She is the scientific director of the Good Manufacturing Practice clean room facility at UC Davis, where stem cells of different types are being isolated or expanded for clinical trials.
Nolta has received multiple awards throughout her career. Early awards include New Investigator Award (1999), Research Career and Development Award (1996), and a National Institutes of Health award (1997). More awards followed, including Huntington's Disease Society of America Distinguished Leadership Award (2008), California State University’s Sacramento Distinguished Service Award (2009), and many more. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts in the stem cell field and has been Editor-in-Chief for the Journal “Stem Cells” since 2013.
Nolta’s desire to serve the community and to make an impact in the lives of people has been one of the major driving forces for many of her career accomplishments. Her group focuses on “bench to bedside” research, and she has been involved in numerous clinical trials of gene and cell therapy. As a first-generation faculty member, Nolta has been an advocate of a diverse science and health care workforce of the future and is currently leading or assisting with numerous training programs. Her passion is in training other first-generation students, and those from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences.
A version of this article was originally posted by UC Davis Health.