Lauren Miller being sworn in as a member of the stem cell agency BoardThe members of our governing Board do an incredible job helping fund the best science and ensuring that we do everything we can to fulfill our mission. But even though they work hard most people know very little about them, how they … Continue reading Actress, screenwriter and stem cell agency Board member talks about her commitment to Alzheimer’s

2013 CIRM Annual Report cover page At last week’s governing Board meeting, communications director Kevin McCormack unveiled CIRM’s 2013 annual report. Was that a yawn I just heard, dear reader? Are you about to click away from this blog? It’s true that annual reports can be bulky tomes that make better dust collectors than reading … Continue reading The 2013 CIRM Annual Report: a concise, informative and yawn-free update on the state stem cell agency’s progress

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. Stem-cell embedded sutures for tendon repair. I love it when a simple idea seems to work. Repairing a torn tendon surgically often results in a … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: tendon repair, disc disease and cancer drugs’ impact on normal stem cells

When a mother says “I’ve never heard my son speak, never heard him tell me he loves me” it’s hard not to feel deeply moved.Those are the words that Jennifer Bidlovski used to describe her son Milo, who has a severe form of autism spectrum disorder, in a video presentation she made to our Board … Continue reading A mother’s plea – find a stem cell therapy to help my son escape autism

Why is this man smiling? Jonathan Thomas, Chair of the CIRM BoardFinding new ways to do the same thing is never easy, particularly when the goal you are aiming for is to try and get the most promising therapies out of the lab and into clinical trials and patients. But yesterday our governing Board found … Continue reading Finding 72 million new ways to hit the same target

A webinar later this morning will address a topic we frequently write about: the power of using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to create laboratory models of diseases. Those models help us understand the cause of the disease and look for ways to treat it. This relatively simple process takes tissue—usually a skin sample or … Continue reading Great chance to learn more about modeling diseases using stem cells

Ask anyone what the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are and the first thing they’ll almost certainly say is loss of memory. It’s not surprising, it’s that fear of losing our memories, losing our sense of self, that makes it such a terrifying disease. But Alzheimer’s has many other symptoms - such as anger, depression, anxiety … Continue reading Stem cells may help ease depression, anxiety and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease

Los Angeles - biopharma business hubMagazines love to use numbers in titles to attract attention. You know the kind, “Top Ten Tips for Trimmer Hips”, “Six Ways to Slim for Swimsuits”, “Five Steps to Perfect Abs”. But here’s a headline you probably won’t see on a magazine cover in the supermarket checkout line – Top … Continue reading Nine reasons why the biotech world loves L.A.

The fact that the symptoms of advanced Parkinson’s disease patients improve after implantation of electrodes has always felt a bit like voodoo to me. But this “deep brain stimulation” works. The dyskinesias, the involuntary muscle tics, that plague these patients improve after the implants. Now, a team of scientists from the University of Florida and … Continue reading Deep brain stimulation may help advanced Parkinson’s patients by producing new stem cells

Liver disease has many causes ranging from various types of hepatitis to genetic mutations and alcohol damage. But when any of these causes lead to severe disease, the patients often find themselves on waiting lists for liver transplants. There are currently 16,000 people in the U.S. on that list and many of them will die … Continue reading Best of the blog: Progress in liver disease