One thing about working at CIRM is that you meet a lot of amazing people living with a lot of disease that are all in need of cures. One of those people I’ve met is Virginia Knepper-Doyle, who has the most common cause of blindness in older people called macular degeneration. We went to her … Continue reading Finding a therapy for macular degeneration

Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Jeff Sheehy and CIRM governing board chair Jonathan ThomasYou find out the most unexpected things in announcements from state bodies. For instance, a recent news release from State Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg’s office contained this line: Charles J. Sheehy, a Democrat from San Francisco, has been reappointed as a … Continue reading HIV/AIDS advocate Jeff Sheehy reappointed to CIRM’s governing board

Last week brought a media and social media frenzy over the announcement that a new clinical trial would be testing the effect of injecting cord blood into kids with autism. The trial—and the conversation surrounding it—illustrates a tension in stem cell science between the hope of the patients and caution on the part of scientists. … Continue reading Stem cell trial for autism: hope vs. caution

CIRM president Alan Trounson was one of the early scientists working to help women get pregnant through in vitro fertilization. His team was responsible for the eight of the first 10 IVF babies born in Australia. Five million babies have now been born worldwide using the technique.Trounson’s work in that field is what led him … Continue reading Alan Trounson: The path from IVF scientist to international stem cell advocate

Good news today regarding stem cell litigation that had put federal funding of embryonic stem cell research in jeopardy. Three judges on federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s July 2011 ruling that dismissed the lawsuit. The lawsuit sought to prevent federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, claiming that the research violated the … Continue reading The waiting ends: Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research deemed legal

Visitors tour stem cell research labs at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research  InstituteWhat are you doing October 3? If your answer doesn’t have something to do with stem cell events, it’s time to start planning. That date marks the fifth annual Stem Cell Awareness Day, an international effort to educate people about the field of stem cell … Continue reading Stem Cell Awareness Day 10/3/12 – what are you doing to spread the word?

The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine is once again collaborating with CIRM on a Partnering Forum associated with the annual Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa in La Jolla. According to their press release:This forum provides a unique opportunity within the regenerative medicine field to facilitate translational research, encourage PI engagement with the business community, and … Continue reading Partnering event helps move research into therapies

CIRM funding spawns patch technology company to treat blindnessWe’ve written a lot in the past year about our increased efforts to engage with industry and to connect our researchers with industry partners. In most cases, we need the involvement of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies if the research by our grantees is going to reach patients. … Continue reading CIRM fosters new industry

Phases of the therapy development pipelineI’ve been spending time recently updating CIRM’s website to reflect all the new awards that came out of last month’s Disease Team funding. About a year ago, when I first posted sections to the website showing our projects that are headed toward disease therapies I could see the entire list … Continue reading Where are our projects on the path to the clinic? Find out

High school student Brandon Hernandez discusses his summer research at the Creativity Awards meetingOne of the things that’s fun about working at CIRM is knowing that we are making a real difference in people’s lives. We got to see evidence of that yesterday when a group of 63 high school students and their mentors from … Continue reading High school students gain experience, get excited about stem cell research