Rhode Island Hospital has won an $11-million federal grant for stem-cell research.

Awarded to Dr. Peter Quesenberry, the hospital’s director of hematology/oncology, the five-year grant will pay for the development of a stem-cell research center that will examine mechanisms of cell repair and, it is hoped, boost the careers of young researchers.

The Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grant, from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health, will “help us to assemble a group of outstanding, talented investigators who excel in these areas,” Quesenberry said. “Those investigators can then serve as mentors to young, up-and-coming researchers, who we can recruit and then retain right here at this research center.”

Quesenberry, also the director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said that the center’s work will focus on ways to employ adult stem cells to repair tissue damaged by disease.

When a cell is injured, it throws off tiny membranous particles called microvesicles, once thought to be nothing more than cellular debris. Recent research has found these microvesicles play a critical role in cell repair. They contain genetic material from within the injured cell, which somehow transforms blood cells into cells that can repair damage.

“The cell systems in the body are very fluid and changing all the time,” Quesenberry said. “Injury accelerates those changes — and maybe we can use this.”

Quesenberry’s research will study how this process occurs with an eye toward marshaling it as a treatment for a variety of illnesses, ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to kidney failure. In particular, he will examine how adult stem cells interact with microvescicles to carry out cell repair.

He will also study the role of stem cells in the spread of cancer, particularly breast, lung and prostate cancer.

Quesenberry works exclusively with adult stem cells obtained from animals and people.

ffreyer@projo.com