Dollars for Profs
Dig Into University Researchers' Outside Income and Conflicts of Interest
Published Dec. 6, 2019
This database was last updated in December 2019 and should only be used as a historical snapshot. There may be new or amended records not reflected here.
Conflict of Interest
Institutions must file significant disclosures to the National Institutes of Health if they determine financial relationships could affect the design, conduct or reporting of the NIH-funded research. The NIH provided us with their entire financial conflict of interest database, with filings from 2012 through 2019.
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Natasha Frank
Boston Children's Hospital, Department: Na
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Triceba Gmbh and Rheacell Gmbh & Co. KG
Other : Member of a Scientific Advisory, Consulting, Equitty
Dr. Frank has a financial interest in Ticeba GmbH (“Ticeba”) and its subsidiary Rheacell GmbH & Co.KG, Inc. (“Rheacell”) due to her husband, Dr. Markus Frank’s consulting income that he receives from Rheacell (together Ticeba and Rheacell shall be referred to as “Companies”). She does not have any role with the Companies, either as a founder, equity holder, consultant, or advisor. Further, she does not receive any sponsored research support from the Companies. Dr. Frank also engages in ABCB5-related research and is a co-inventor of an ABCB5-related patent in the field of cancer, which since September 2015 is now also licensed to the Companies.
In 2003, Dr. Markus Frank helped found Ticeba. The subject research involves the roles of ABCB5 in stem cell biology in the area of ABCB5-positive cancer stem cells. The research has previously been unrelated to the Company, since, until recently, the Company operated primarily as a stem cell bank for the storage of autologous stem cells for individual clients for future therapeutic applications, and the Company not pursue cancer therapeutics. In September of 2015, the Company began pursuing cancer therapeutics, which is related to Dr. Frank’s work in this grant, whereby the outcome of Dr. Frank’s research may have the potential to indirectly benefit the company.
ABCB5-positive stem cells for LSCD therapy
Patients with corneal injuries or disease can develop limbal stem cell deficiency (LSCD) in which they lose the ability to maintain the corneal surface, ultimately resulting in blindness due to an irreversibly opaque cornea. We have discovered a new gene, ABCB5, which identifies stem cells in human and mammalian limbus. This discovery has allowed us, for the first time, to purify limbal stem cells for transplantation and to successfully restore the cornea in LSCD. The current proposal builds upon these results to address important challenges that currently remain in achieving more universal success of cell therapy for patients with unilateral or bilateral LSCD. Specifically, we hypothesize that ABCB5+ limbal stem cells isolated and expanded ex vivo can be used as a source of autologous or allogeneic stem cells to regenerate the corneal epithelium and restore vision in patients with either unilateral or bilateral LSCD.
Filed on April 22, 2016.
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Natasha Frank filed other conflict of interest disclosures with the NIH:
| Name | Institution | Type | Company | Disclosed Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natasha Frank | Brigham and Women's Hospital | Conflict of Interest | Ticeba GmbH | $60,000 - $79,999 |
| Natasha Frank | Brigham and Women's Hospital | Conflict of Interest | Ticeba GmbH | $10,000 - $19,999 |
Notes: When a more specific filing date is not available for an individual financial disclosure or conflict of interest form, we use the year the form was filed. If the year was not disclosed, we report the range of years covered by our public records requests. In a few cases, a start date was provided instead of a filing date. In those cases, we use the start date instead.
Fewer than 10% of records from the University of Florida and fewer than 1% of records from the University of Texas system were removed because they did not contain enough information.
ProPublica obtained additional financial disclosures and conflict of interest forms that we have not yet digitized and added to the database. You can download those disclosures in the ProPublica Data Store.