To Mend: (verb used with object) to make (something broken, worn, torn or otherwise damaged) whole, sound or usable by repairing.

It’s remarkable to believe, but today doctors literally have the tools to repair damaged cells. These tools are being used to treat people with diseases that were once incurable. The field of regenerative medicine has made tremendous progress in the last 15 years, but how did these tools come about and what is the experience of patients being treated with them?

These questions, and hopefully yours too, are going to be answered at the fourth annual CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Symposium on April 18, 2019 at the University of California at San Francisco.

The symposium is free, and the program is designed with patients and the public in mind, so don’t be shy and put your scientific thinking caps on! A complete agenda may be found here

Perhaps one of the most remarkable discoveries in the past decade are new tools that enable doctors to “edit” or correct a patient’s own DNA. DNA correction tools came about because of a remarkable string of scientific breakthroughs. The symposium will dive into this history and discuss  how these tools are being used today to treat patients.

One specific example of the promise that DNA editing holds is for those with sickle cell disease (SCD), a condition where patients’ blood forming stem cells contain a genetic error that causes the disease. The symposium will describe how the CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Network, a series of medical centers across California whose focus is on stem cell clinical trials, are supporting work aimed at mending blood cells to cure debilitating diseases like SCD.

Doctors, nurses and patients involved with these trials will be telling their stories and describing their experiences. One important focus will be how Alpha Clinic teams are partnering with community members to ensure that patients, interested in new treatments, are informed about the availability of clinical trials and receive sufficient information to make the best treatment choices.

The fourth annual CIRM Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Symposium is an opportunity for patients, their families and the public to meet the pioneers who are literally mending a patients own stem cells to cure their disease.

For registration information go here.