Yesterday’s meeting of our governing Board was important for a number of reasons. First, the Board voted to invest some $32 million to try and get two promising projects into clinical trials – more on that in a minute – and also to try and attract some world-class researchers to California through our Research Leadership … Continue reading A Second Chance for a Spinal Cord Injury Trial, and a Powerful Reminder from Patient Advocates
Month: May 2014
Stem Cell Agency Governing Board’s Meeting is Now Live
The May Board meeting is now underway. Big items under discussion today are funding for our Strategic Partnership Awards - designed to encourage more partnerships with industry - and Research Leadership - to attract the best stem cell scientists to California. You can listen in to the proceedings in a number of different ways. PHONE: … Continue reading Stem Cell Agency Governing Board’s Meeting is Now Live
Slowing Down the Clock on Aging Hearts
It’s like something from a nightmare: a disease that ages you at a breakneck pace, so that by age 12, your body more closely resembles someone in their 80’s—inside and out. Instead of enjoying your childhood and adolescence, you suffer from diseases usually reserved for octogenarians: including heart disease, kidney failure and stroke. Chances are, … Continue reading Slowing Down the Clock on Aging Hearts
Getting at the Root of Cancer: Cancer Stem Cells Tracked down in Human Patients
The backers of the cancer stem cell hypothesis just got a boost from scientists at the University of Oxford, UK, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who last week used an advanced genetic tracking technique that identified, in patients, the presence of cancer stem cells—a small subset of cancer cells that many experts view as … Continue reading Getting at the Root of Cancer: Cancer Stem Cells Tracked down in Human Patients
Perfecting the use of stem cells as drug delivery mules shows promise in brain tumors
Stem cells loaded with cancer-killing herpes virus (red) attacking a brain tumor cell (green). Courtesy HSCIThe innate tendency of stem cells to seek out inflammation—combined with the fact that our bodies see tumors as inflammation—has led many teams to try to harness stem cells as delivery vehicles for cancer therapies. CIRM funds a team at … Continue reading Perfecting the use of stem cells as drug delivery mules shows promise in brain tumors
Scientists Successfully Test Stem Cell Therapy in Monkeys; Generate New Bone
Last week, researchers came that much closer to one day regrowing human bone lost to disease or injury. In the latest issue of the journal Cell Reports, scientists from the National Institutes of Health announced that they have transformed skin cells from rhesus macaque monkeys into new bone—marking the first time such a procedure has … Continue reading Scientists Successfully Test Stem Cell Therapy in Monkeys; Generate New Bone
New Lease on Legs: Stem Cell Treatment Gives Mice with MS-Like Condition Ability to Walk
For a long time, the team of scientists was in shock: in just two weeks they had transformed mice that could not walk—into mice that could. In the latest issue of Stem Cell Reports, available online today, scientists from the University of Utah and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, have reversed the … Continue reading New Lease on Legs: Stem Cell Treatment Gives Mice with MS-Like Condition Ability to Walk
New clues to the origins of schizophrenia
A new CIRM-supported from researchers at the Salk Institute highlights how scientists gaining insight into the origins of schizophrenia using stem-cell derived brain cells that resemble those of the developing brain. Published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry the study shows an alternative method of studying brains affected by schizophrenia. In the past, scientists used the … Continue reading New clues to the origins of schizophrenia
Guest blogger Alan Trounson — April’s stem cell research highlights
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. This month’s report includes an important review of studies using bone marrow … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — April’s stem cell research highlights
Behind the Bench: One Student’s Mission to Fight Ataxia
Jackie Ward is a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and former CIRM trainee. At UCSD uses stem cells as a model to study rare neurodegenerative diseases in the lab of Albert La Spada. My work as a PhD student focuses on a rare form of inherited neurodegeneration called spinocerebellar ataxia. … Continue reading Behind the Bench: One Student’s Mission to Fight Ataxia