Participants doing hands on activities as part of a Stem Cell Awareness Day event at The Scripps Research Institute

The stem cell field’s rapid progress toward therapies invigorates all of us who have the privilege of working in it, either directly in the lab or at enabling agencies such as CIRM. Today, on the 6th annual Stem Cell Awareness Day, scores of us in the field reach out to the public, and particularly to high school students, to share some of the energy and excitement.

Researchers funded by CIRM at universities and companies up and down the state of California are going into classrooms where the teachers have requested a guest lecture. We expect to reach more than 3,000 students today and more in classes scheduled later in the month. If this year is like past ones, in the next few days my email in-box will have many notes from students thanking the researchers for opening their eyes to potential new career options.

We believe getting young people into the stem cell career pipeline early is essential. That is why I conceived and managed the development of a five-unit high school curriculum in 2009 that is freely available at our Stem Cell Education Portal.

A fellow stem cell blogger, Teisha Rowland has devoted her posts yesterday and today to Stem Cell Awareness Day and k-12 education resources. She has links to several science fair projects developed by her employer Science Buddies. She highlights these and other education resources at her site AllThingsStemCells.

But, many of the activities today and throughout the month—we consider all of October a time to share stem cell knowledge—are focused on the general public. A list of those we are aware of can be found on the Stem Cell Awareness Day website.

If you can’t make one of these events but want to educate yourself about stem cells, here are a few resources on our website:

• Stem Cell Basics
• Disease fact sheets
• A list of our therapies in development

Happy stem cell day. Share your knowledge. Share the hope.

Don Gibbons