By Don C. ReedThe world is delighted that patients with injured eyes in Italy regained their sight, thanks to the use of stem cells transplanted from their own good eyes. This is a wonderful victory for Dr. Grazziella Pellegrini, the University of Modena, and everyone involved. They are doubly to be congratulated because they are … Continue reading Full Vision Cure? Full Stem Cell Research Required

The issue of stem cell tourism has gotten a lot of attention in the past few weeks. Two weeks ago, the Costa Rica health ministry closed down a clinic offering unproven stem cell therapies (here is our blog entry on this event, and a video about stem cell tourism). Last week, CIRM and ISSCR co-hosted … Continue reading Stem Cell Tourism in the news

Last week, while stem cell researchers from around the world congregated in San Francisco for their annual meeting, stem cell pioneer Shinya Yamanaka won the Kyoto Prize for Advanced Technology. This award in generally considered to be a precursor to a Nobel Prize.A press release from UCSF said:Yamanaka received the prize for his discovery of … Continue reading Shinya Yamanaka receives Kyoto prize for reprogramming skin cells

Some happy news from this week's meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research held in San Francisco (co-sponsored by CIRM): CIRM grantee Joanna Wysocka won the organization's Outstanding Young Investigator Award, given out at a session on Thursday morning. Wysocka, who is assistant professor of developmental biology at Stanford University School of Medicine, … Continue reading CIRM grantee Joanna Wysocka wins Outstanding Young Investigator Award

CIRM grantee Paul Knoepfler at UC Davis just published an interesting paper. He also publishes a blog, so we'll let him describe this findings in his own words:We just published a paper supported by CIRM funding showing that knocking out c- and N-myc in mESC leads to a wave of differentiation-associated gene expression, decreased cell … Continue reading Cancer genes also involved in embryogenesis, stem cell maintenance

Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute posted an interesting item today on their blog Beaker about a talk given as part of the Southern California Stem Cell Consortium. At the invitation of Evan Snyder, Dr. Antonio Iavarone of Columbia University discussed his work with a protein named Id. According to their entry:He described how Id keeps stem … Continue reading Stem cells, Id, and cancer

Many people in the stem cell community and at CIRM have been concerned about the growing trend of stem cell tourism -- people going overseas to receive unproven "stem cell" therapies. The term Stem Cells is in quotes here because in general these clinics are less than open about what, exactly, the therapy entails. One … Continue reading Costa Rica strikes against false hope

More news from UC Irvine, this time relating to retinal diseases such as macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and Stargardt’s disease. A group led by Hans Keirstead of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center created an 8-layer retina from human embryonic stem cells.In a press release, Keirstead said:“What’s … Continue reading Multilayer retinina created from embryonic stem cells

CIRM-funded Researchers at the University of California, Irvine published an interesting paper this week that helps explain one mystery — how do transplanted stem cells go to the right place? This is an important issue for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, where transplanted stem cells would have to navigate to the damaged nerves.In a press … Continue reading Mysteries of stem cell migration revealed