The company StemCells Inc has released data about the first group of patients participating in their stem cell clinical trial for spinal cord injury.But first, the full disclosure. We didn’t fund this work, but we did award this company a Disease Team award to continue the trial. The trial is based on work by our … Continue reading Positive signs for spinal cord injury trial

Are you curious what, exactly California’s stem cell agency funds? Where the money goes? What results we’ve had? How much money we’ve spent?Answers to these questions and more are now available on an FAQ that we unveiled along with our new website last week. You can see that FAQ here.We put this resource together because … Continue reading Your stem cell agency FAQs answered

Turns out we’re not the only people who think our grantees do great work. Two of our grantees at University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford received prestigious awards for their stem cell research.Joanna WysockaJoanna Wysocka from Stanford received an award from the Vilcek Foundation, which honors foreign-born scientists and artists (Wysocka was born in … Continue reading Two CIRM grantees win awards for their work

Blood cells like these are all generated from blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrowThe stem cell field passed a milestone recently, according to the Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation: There have now been more than 1 million blood stem cell transplants worldwide. This milestone came not long after the death of E. … Continue reading One millionth blood stem cell transplant

Each month CIRM President Alan Trounson gives his perspective on recently published papers he thinks will be valuable in moving the field of stem cell research forward. This month’s report, along with an archive of past reports, is available on the CIRM website.My report this month is filled with examples of researchers improving our ability … Continue reading Alan Trounson’s monthly picks: advances in reprogramming

We are very proud to announce CIRM’s new website: http://www.cirm.ca.govIt’s certainly more beautiful than our old site, but in this case beauty is more than skin deep. It also has a lot of new features to help people stay up to date on stem cell research and follow our progress.One big change is on our … Continue reading Stem cell agency launches new website: more information, easier to use

Today is World Cancer Day. As groups around the globe seek to increase awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment, it seemed like a good time to discuss some of the flurry of work being done to try to reign in cancer stem cells. Most experts in the field consider those … Continue reading On World Cancer Day the cancer stem cell field is hot

We released an independently produced economic impact study this week that showed the agency has delivered significant benefit to the state. The first $1.5 billion in committed grants is generating 38,000 job years and $286 million in new tax revenue in California through 2014 (the press release about the report is here). CIRM’s job number … Continue reading Independant review estimates agency has created jobs and tax revenue for California

Several research teams have published results in the past couple years suggesting an infusion of stem cells may help a heart heal after a heart attack. The benefit has generally been modest and none of the teams has shown how the cells are really working. One group that reported somewhat better results was the CIRM-funded … Continue reading Study shows how stem cell therapy helps heal hearts