Periodically we feature "Tales from the bench" stories of life in the lab from our grantees. Jacqueline Ward is a graduate student in the lab of Albert La Spada at the University of California, San Diego, where she has a CIRM training grant to use stem cells to better understand and treat forms of blindness.I’m … Continue reading Tales from the bench: The puzzling nature of research

Today, the Italian government approved an untested use of stem cells that advocates say could be the last hope for some critically ill people. However, despite a lot of hope on the part of families—and some celebrities—there’s no evidence that the cells work or are even safe. Lawrence Goldstein of UCSD wrote about the issue … Continue reading Italians allow untested use of stem cells

Fred Fisher, President and CEO of the ALS Association Golden West Chapter, in a video spreading awareness for ALSIn 2003, I joined the fight against Lou Gehrig’s Disease. During my time as the President and CEO of The ALS Association Golden West Chapter, I have personally seen the devastation that ALS causes. We have lost … Continue reading Breaking the isolation; raising awareness for #ALS

Back in 2001, early hints that stem cells from bone marrow may help repair the heart led, a few years later, to several clinical trials testing the idea. Thirty three trials and 1,765 patients later and, as Ed Yong writes for the BBC, "Their results were underwhelming."On average, injected stem cells improved the heart’s pumping … Continue reading Where are we with stem cells for #heartdisease? Great summary from the BBC

Image by Leonard John MatthewsFor those of us with painful stiff knees caused by osteoarthritis a new theory on what causes it doesn’t excite us much if the news is followed by the usual retort in this field: but there is nothing we can do about it. This time, a group at John’s Hopkins has … Continue reading New stem cell culprit in osteoarthritis points to potential therapy

Karen Aboody at City of Hope is already an expert at engineering stem cells to treat cancer. She has a grant from CIRM to develop a way of getting stem cells to deliver chemotherapy directly to tumor cells in the brain, sparing the surrounding tissue.Now, she's published a new paper showing that neural stem cells … Continue reading Stem cells carrying gold nanoparticles could treat tumors, spare healthy tissue

Here are some stem cell stories that caught our eye this past week. Some are groundbreaking science, others are of personal interest to us, and still others are just fun. Putting cloning into perspective. There has been much written the past few days about the first ever creation of embryonic stem cells from a cloned … Continue reading Stem cell Stories that caught our eye: perspectives on cloning, alligator teeth, power of patient advocates

Neil Littman is the Business Development Officer at CIRM where he is responsible for facilitating opportunities for outside investment in stem cell research in California for both CIRM-funded and non CIRM-funded programs by biopharma companies and venture capital investors. A CIRM-funded company, bluebird bio Inc., today filed an S-1 registration statement with the SEC for … Continue reading bluebird bio files for IPO, advancing B-thalassemia program

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group Yesterday the news broke that scientists led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at Oregon Health and Science University derived human embryonic stem cells through a process called nuclear transfer (more about that here). The report is an important step forward for the development of stem cell-based therapies because … Continue reading Galileo and reproductive cloning both fall victim to dogma

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, left, and Matthias Hebrok, PhDIn what could be a critical step for developing cell transplantation therapies, CIRM grantees at UCSF have managed to turn embryonic stem cells into functioning tissue from what might be the smallest and most easily forgotten organ of your body -- the thymus. Although the thymus is … Continue reading New technique could prevent the immune system from rejecting transplanted cells or organs