Associate Research Biologist, Developmental Biology Center
School of Biological Sciences

Director, National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource

stem cells, neural stem cells, embryonic stem cells, stem cell research

National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource

Trained at UCLA's Brain Research Institute, Dr. Schwartz is a full-time stem cell biologist and holds the Senior Scientist position at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) Research Institute. Dr. Schwartz is the Director and Founder of the National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource, and an Associate Research Biologist at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Schwartz' early work included studies of several models of energy failure-induced brain damage as well as preclinical and clinical studies of pharmacologic agents aimed at maintaining cerebral perfusion and/or neuroprotection. This work involved translational research aimed toward improving the treatment of neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit patients with brain injury and disease. For the last fourteen years, he has been involved in the harvest of neural stem cells in human brains from patients that have died with neurogenetic disease and the research in his laboratory is directed towards understanding the factors influencing the behavior of neural stem cells in the normal and neurogenetically diseased brain. This work now includes the use of neural stem cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Much of this work has been directed towards evaluating the efficacy of neural stem cell transplantation in animal models of degenerative eye diseases and of neurogenetic disease. This latter work has direct application to the clinical use of stem cells for the treatment of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, the major clinical focus of Dr. Schwartz and his clinical colleagues at CHOC. More recent work is focused on using neural stem cells derived from patients with autism in an effort to define new therapeutic and diagnostic targets for this most prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder.

Dr. Schwartz’ laboratory currently consists of a PhD Scientist and three Research Associates/Laboratory Technicians. Dr. Schwartz regularly participates in special study sections on stem cells at the NIH and reviews grant applications and manuscripts for a large number of other granting agencies and journals. He has recently been a Member of the Distinguished Editors Panel for NIH Challenge Grant applications that proposed to use human pluripotent (embryonic) stem cells. Dr. Schwartz also regularly disseminates stem cell research information to the lay public by way of lectures and the print, television, and radio media.

Luo MH, Hannemann H, Kulkarni AS, Schwartz PH, O’Dowd JM, and Fortunato, EA “Human cytomegalovirus infection causes premature and abnormal differentiation of human neural progenitor cells” Journal of Virology (2007 Impact Factor 5.332), in press (2010).

Hester, ME, Song, SW, Miranda, CJ, Eagle, A, Schwartz, PH, and Kaspar, BK “Two factor reprogramming of human neural stem cells into pluripotency” PLoS ONE, 4:e7044 (2009).

Gopalakrishnan S, Van Emburgh BO, Shan J, Su Z, Fields CR, Vieweg J, Hamazaki T, Schwartz PH, Terada N, and Robertson KD “A novel DNMT3B splice variant expressed in tumor and pluripotent cells modulates genomic DNA methylation patterns and displays altered DNA binding” Molecular Cancer Research (2007 IF 4.317), 7:1622-34 (2009).

Wang RY, Cambray-Forker EJ, Ohanian K, Karlin DS, Covault KK, Schwartz PH, and Abdenur JE “Treatment reduces severity of brain imaging abnormalities in patients with MPS I and II” Molecular Genetics and Metabolism (2007 IF 2.55), 98:406-11 (2009).

Schwartz PH and Kalichman MW “Ethical Challenges to Cell-Based Interventions for the Central Nervous System: Some Recommendations for Clinical Trials and Practice” American Journal of Bioethics (2007 IF 3.934), 9:41-43 (2009).

Pistollato F, Chen HL, Schwartz PH, Basso G and Panchision DM “Hypoxia represses the differentiative effects of BMPs in high grade glioma” Stem Cells (2007 IF 7.531), 27:7-17 (2009).

Schwartz, P.H., “Training the next generation of pluripotent stem cell researchers”, Journal of Translational Medicine (2007 IF 2.94) 6:40 (2008).

Luo MH, Schwartz, PH, Fortunato, EA “Neonatal neural progenitor cells (NPCs) and their neuronal and glial derivatives are fully permissive for human cytomegalovirus infection” Journal of Virology (2007 IF 5.332), 82:9994-10007 (2008).

Jingxin Qiu, Lingbao Ai, Cheppail Ramachandran, Bing Yao, Suhasni Gopalakrishnan, C. Robert Fields, Amber L. Delmas, Lisa M. Dyer, Steven J. Melnick, Anthony T. Yachnis, Philip H. Schwartz, Howard A. Fine, Kevin D. Brown, and Keith D. Robertson “Invasion suppressor cystatin E/M (CST6): High-level cell type-specific expression in normal brain and epigenetic silencing in brain tumors” Laboratory Investigation (2007 IF 4.479), 88:910-925 (2008).

Klassen, Henry; Warfvinge, Karin; Schwartz, Philip; Kiilgaard, Jens; Shamie, Neda; Jiang, Caihui; Samuel, Melissa; Scherfig, Erik; Prather, Randall; Young, Michael “Isolation of progenitor cells from GFP-transgenic pigs and transplantation to the retina of allorecipients” Cloning and Stem Cells (2007 IF 2.937), 10:391-402 (2008).

Mueller, FJ, Kostka, D, Ulitsky, I, Williams, R, Laurent, L, Lu, C, Rao, MS, Shamir, R, Schwartz, PH, Schmidt, NO, Loring, JF “Regulatory networks define phenotypic classes of human stem cell lines” Nature (2007 IF 28.751), 455:401-5 (2008).

Schwartz, P.H., Brick, D.J., Stover, A.E., Loring, J.F., and Mueller, F.J. “Differentiation of Neural Lineage Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells” Methods (2007 IF 3.667), 45:142-158 (2008).

Schwartz, P.H. and Brick, D.J. “Stem Cell Therapies for the Lysosomal Storage Diseases – the Quintessential Neurodegenerative Diseases” Current Stem Cell Research and Therapy (2007 IF 2.94), 3:88-98 (2008).

Pistollato F, Chen HL, Schwartz PH, Basso G and Panchision DM “Oxygen tension controls the expansion of human CNS precursors and the generation of astrocytes and oligodendrocytes” Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience (2007 IF 3.994) 35:424-435 (2007).

Lee, J.P., Lee, P.J., Takahashi, H., Jeyakumar, M., Clark, D., Clarke, J., Tong, G., Wenger, D., Platt, F.M., Seyfried, T.M., Schwartz, P., Lipton, S.A., and Snyder, E.Y. “Stem cells act through multiple mechanisms to benefit mice with neurodegenerative metabolic disease” Nature Medicine (2007 IF 26.382) 13:439-447 (2007).

Klassen H, Schwartz PH, Ziaeian B, Nethercott H, Young MJ, Bragodottir R, Tullis GE, Warfvinge K and Narfstrom K “Neural precursors isolated from the developing cat brain show retinal integration following transplantation to the retina of the dystrophic cat” Veterinary Ophthalmology (2007 IF 0.820) 10:245-253 (2007).

Terskikh, A. Bryant, P.J., and Schwartz, P.H. “Mammalian Stem Cells” Pediatric Research (2007 IF 2.839), 59(4) 13R-20R (2006).

Schwartz, P.H. and Rae, S.B. “Ethical Donation of Human Embryos for Harvest of Stem Cells” Reproductive Biomedicine Online (2007 IF 2.840), 12:771-775 (2006).
Schwartz, P.H. “The Potential of Stem Cell Therapies for Neurological Diseases” Expert Reviews in Neurotherapeutics (2007 IF), 6:153-61 (2006).

Flanagan, L.A., Rebaza, L.M. Derzic, S, Schwartz, P.H., and Monuki, E.S. "Conserved Regulation of Human and Mouse Cortical Neural Stem Cells by Extracellular Matrix" Journal of Neuroscience Research (2007 IF 3.268), 83:845-856 (2006).

CM Greco, RF Berman, RM Martin, F Tassone, PH Schwartz, J Grigsby, D Hessl, EJ Becker, J Papazian, S Bacalman, MA Leehey , RJ Hagerman, PJ Hagerman “Neuropathology of fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS)” Brain (2007 IF 8.568), 129:243-255 (2006).

Arocena, D.G., Iwahashi, C.K., Beilina, A., Ludwig, A.L., Schwartz, P.H., and Hagerman, P.J. “Induction of inclusion formation and disruption of lamin A/C structure by permutation CGG-repeat RNA in human cultured neural cells” Human Molecular Genetics (2007 IF 7.806), 14(23):3661-71 (2005).

Schwartz, P.H., Nethercott, H.E., Kirov, I.I., Ziaeian, B., Young, M.J., and Klassen, H. "Expression of Neurodevelopmental Markers by Cultured Porcine Neural Precursor Cells" Stem Cells (2007 IF 7.531), 23(9):1286-94 (2005).

Chung, B.G., Flanagan, L.A., Rhee, S.W., Schwartz, P.H., Lee, A.P., Monuki, E.S., Jeon, N.L. "Human Neural Stem Cell Growth and Differentiation in a Gradient-Generating Microfluidic Device" Lab on a Chip (2007 IF 5.068), 5(4):401-6 (2005).

Klassen, H., Ziaeian, B., Kirov, I.I., Young, M.J., Schwartz, P.H. "Isolation of Retinal Progenitor Cells from Postmortem Human Tissue with Comparison to Autologous Brain Progenitors" J. Neurosci. Res. 77:334-43 (2004).

Beilina, S., Tassone, F., Schwartz, P.H., Sahota, P., and Hagerman, P.J. "Redistribution of transcription start sites within the FMR1 promoter region with expansion of the downstream CGG-repeat element" Hum. Mol. Genet. 13:543-549 (2004).

Schwartz, P.H., Tassone, F., Greco, C.M., Nethercott, H.E., Ziaeian, B., Hagerman, R.J., and Hagerman, P.J. "Neural Progenitor Cells from an Adult Patient with Fragile X Syndrome" BMC Medical Genetics (2007 IF 2.419), 6:2-24 (2005).

Schwartz, P.H., Bryant, P.J., Fuja, T.J., Su, H., O'Dowd, D.K., and Klassen, H.K. "Isolation and Characterization of Neural Progenitor Cells form Post-Mortem Human Cortex." J. Neurosci. Res. in press (2003).

Fuja, T.J., Schwartz, P.H., Darcy, D. and Bryant, P.J. “Asymmetric Localization of LGN but not AGS3, Two Homologs of Drosophila Pins in Dividing Human Neural Progenitor Cells.” J. Neurosci. Res. in press (2003).

Palmer, T.D., Schwartz, P.H., Taupain, P., Kaspar, B., Stein, S.A., and Gage, F.H. “Stem Cells grown from Postmortem Human Brain” Nature 411(3 May 2001):42-43 (2001).

R01-HD059967 (Schwartz); 7/1/09 – 6/30/14; NIH, An Open Resource for Autism iPSCs and their Derivatives

TB1-01182 (Klig); 7/1/09 – 6/30/12; CIRM; CIRM Stem Cell Research Biotechnology Training Program at CSULB

TB1-01181 (Patel); 10/1/09 – 9/30/12; CIRM; Stem Cell Training Program at CSUF — A Bridge to Stem Cell Research

R21-MH087925; 9/30/09 – 7/31/11; NIH; Autism iPSCs for Studying Function and Dysfunction in Human Neural Development

No Number (Schwartz); 7/1/01 - 6/30/10; CHOC Foundation, National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource

Society for Neuroscience

Society for Mitochondrial Medicine

American Society for Human Genetics

Society for Developmental Biology

International Society for Stem Cell Research

Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=4936

Last updated
08/30/2016