Photo by Simon PearsonAnyone who has spent time working in print journalism knows most headlines are not written by the people who wrote the story. I hope several of the authors of the stories the past two days about teeth grown from stem cells in urine are pissed off (har har) at the headline writers. … Continue reading Dear headline writers: Teeth did not grow from stem cells in urine

Cells becoming neurons (red) in mice lacking FOXO3. Image courtesy of Ashley Webb.Our grantee Anne Brunet at Stanford University has known for a while now that a protein called FOXO3 has something to do with longer lifespan in both lab animals and people. She and members of her lab also knew that FOXO3 is found … Continue reading The key to longer life: a gene that preserves neural stem cells

Virginia Hughes wrote for the July-August issue of Smithsonian about the recent work by our grantee Thea Tlsty, who discovered cells in the adult body that can form all tissue types. (We wrote about that work here.)All previously identified stem cells in adult tissues could only go on to form the cell types found in … Continue reading Smithsonian discusses new stem cells discovered by CIRM grantee Thea Tlsty

In a much-anticipated move, the CIRM Governing Board gave the green light to a concept plan to develop a statewide network of Alpha stem cell clinics at yesterday’s Board meeting. The proposed plan will allocate $70 million to set up five clinics and a central coordinating center. The network will add momentum to the growing … Continue reading CIRM’s Board approves Alpha clinics network to smooth road to stem cell clinical trials

Image by Sanford-Burnham Medical Research InstituteToday we bring you a story about proteins that help stem cells decide when they should divide to create more specialized cells. Those same proteins also have a role in cancer. Sound like yesterday’s entry? The difference is that today’s stem cells are in the brain while yesterday’s were in … Continue reading CIRM grantees find network of proteins that control neural stem cells

CIRM grantees at UCSF have made a discovery that helps explain how stem cells in the body keep track of when to make more of themselves and when to produce non-stem cells. This work is important for scientists trying to harness stem cells in the body as disease therapies. Their work involves a protein called … Continue reading Taking a bite of out of stem cell mysteries: a new role for a cancer protein

This photo comes from CIRM Creativity high school intern Jessica Wang. She's spending her summer in the Huiqing Wu lab at City of Hope. You can see more photos from these students by following the Instagram hashtag #CIRMStemCellLab.All photos are also on our website.Amy Adams Read more stem cell research news from the California Institute … Continue reading Featured photo: labware in black and white

Readers of this blog are frequently reminded that not all stem cells are created equal. This post is a bit wonky but it seems important to take note of an international effort to add rigor to defining one type of stem cell, the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC).Clinical trials testing MSCs make up the majority of … Continue reading Stricter standards for telling stem cells apart

Back on July 9th, we announced in a press release and blog that Calimmune Inc. had treated the first patient in a CIRM-funded clinical trial involving the use of an innovative gene-based stem cell therapy to help protect individuals infected with HIV from the effects of the AIDS virus. Louis Breton and Geoff Symonds, Calimmune’s … Continue reading New Video: Calimmune Begins CIRM-Funded Stem Cell-Based HIV/AIDS Clinical Trial

More than 250,000 people are admitted to the hospital each year for hip fractureLast week we wrote about Stanford stem cell scientist Jill Helms and her advice for our undergraduate and masters level Bridges trainees. In that talk she mentioned an unanticipated but successful career switch to the field of bone healing.That career switch resulted … Continue reading Quicker healing for older bones