A pancreatic beta cell. Image by Itkin-Ansari labType 1 diabetes has been a major focus of CIRM funding, including a disease team award to San Diego-based ViaCyte that is expected to bring a therapy to trial within four years.Sanford-Burnham has a great post on their blog about how stem cell therapies for diabetes might work. … Continue reading Stem cell therapies for diabetes: wrap them up
Month: December 2010
Genetic regions guide embryonic stem cell development
Joanna WysockaStem cell research generally doesn’t make the news unless it’s a story about diseases and cures. We push toward cures every day here at CIRM, but we also fund a lot of the less flashy science that — though it doesn’t make the daily news — we think will one day underlie many of … Continue reading Genetic regions guide embryonic stem cell development
More on the Berlin patient, stem cells, and a cure for HIV
The response to the story about the Berlin patient who was reported cured of HIV has been incredible, but in this case it’s also a little troubling. What I see in comments on news stories or in tweets is that we have an uphill battle in terms of educating people about stem cells.The stem cells … Continue reading More on the Berlin patient, stem cells, and a cure for HIV
Stem cell therapy treats HIV, basis for two CIRM disease teams
There’s a lot of buzz today over a paper in the journal Blood declaring a man who has come to be known as the “Berlin patient” cured of HIV. The same patient was featured in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009. A man infected with HIV needed a bone marrow transplant for … Continue reading Stem cell therapy treats HIV, basis for two CIRM disease teams
California funds the most stem cell research not eligible for federal funding
Aaron Levine from Georgia Tech published a letter in Nature Biotechnology assessing state funding for stem cell research, and he came to a conclusion that matches our own. In a press release he said:"There's no question that these state programs drew a lot of scientists into the field."That’s good news; Given the difficulty of generating … Continue reading California funds the most stem cell research not eligible for federal funding
CIRM grantees at UCI collaborate on Swiss spinal cord injury trial
More good news for people with spinal cord injury out of the University of California, Irvine: two CIRM grantees collaborated with Palo Alto-based StemCells Inc. to develop a neural stem cell therapy that has been approved for a trial in Switzerland.Brian Cummings and Aileen Anderson did the preclinical work on the possible treatment, which will … Continue reading CIRM grantees at UCI collaborate on Swiss spinal cord injury trial
Oral arguments made in federal stem cell case
Yesterday a three judge panel of the U.S. Appeals Court heard oral arguments in the legal case that has threatened federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research since August.Nature has an excellent piece with excerpts from the arguments. The central issue is whether funding for research using human embryonic stem cells is in violation … Continue reading Oral arguments made in federal stem cell case
Protein Linked to Normal Prostate Stem Cells and to Cancer
When I was the editor of a national magazine for physicians, I told my writers to do any story they found on prostate issues, with our overwhelming male audience then, I knew those stories would get high readership scores. My readers back then would have loved today’s news out of UCLA. The team there, led … Continue reading Protein Linked to Normal Prostate Stem Cells and to Cancer