On Wednesday the CIRM governing board heard from the external review panel that evaluated CIRM’s activities. (You can read their report and bios here.)

One especially interesting portion of the conversation had to do with outreach: how do we let the people of California know about our progress? The panel and several board members mentioned our video program (YouTube videos are available here) and social media (here’s our Twitter and Facebook pages, if you want to follow us).

Beyond these attempts at reaching the people of California, the panel recommended engaging patient advocates and building communities of stem cell evangelists who can talk about the power of the research in California.

I’d love feedback. Anyone reading this blog is at least somewhat engaged with CIRM and stem cell research. Would you be willing to help us spread the word? Do you have recommendations for how we can reach more people? Are you a patient advocate who would like to get more involved in rallying support for CIRM and stem cell research?

If yes, let me know your thoughts on what we can do at CIRM or how you want to help.

Just keep in mind that although we have quite a bit of money for research, we can only spend a tiny fraction of that for administration and our staff is small.

I look forward to your ideas!

A.A.