Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working GroupIn my role coordinating CIRM’s Standards Working Group, I often participate in conversations about ethical implications of participating in clinical trials. In that capacity, I recently attended the annual conference for the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Professionals (AAHRPP). These conversations are … Continue reading Global Clinical Trials: Spreading the Wealth Yields Diversity

There's an image I love in an interview with Northwestern University stem cell scientist John Kessler. He is a neurologist who turned to stem cell science after skiing accident left his daughter with a spinal cord injury. In the Q&A, Kessler has this to say about how science progresses:I often use this analogy: science is … Continue reading Building stem cell-based cures brick by brick

Kristen BrennandCIRM grantee Fred Gage at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and his lab are creating a veritable cellular hospital of disease conditions playing out in laboratory dishes. What they learn from these diseases-in-miniature could lead to new ways of creating and screening drugs to treat the disorder.In 2008, he matured embryonic stem cells … Continue reading From stem cells to schizophrenia in a dish

Work with neural stem cells suggests that antidepressants such as Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil do their work by encouraging the generation of new brain cells. Happy brain cells, to judge by their effects.The work was done by British scientists from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and published April 12 in in Molecular Psychiatry. A … Continue reading Antidepressants rev up neural stem cells

CIRM grantees at Sanford-Burnham have just published an interesting paper in PLoS Biology about developing a type of neuron that could alleviate symptoms of Huntington's disease, autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — all diseases in which some neurons lose their inhibitions.First, the big picture. In the brain, some neurons send signals to other neurons, relaying … Continue reading Making neurons lose their inhibitions

A new paper by CIRM grantees at Stanford University is reporting on an innovative way of ensuring that people considering donating left over in vitro fertilization embryos to research make the best possible decision for themselves. The paper was published on April 8 in Cell Stem Cell. People who undergo IVF are often left with … Continue reading IVF embryo donation approach gives donors privacy, time

The good folks at the Scottish Stem Cell Network have pointed out an interesting relationship between CIRM and Scotland. We don't have a formal funding relationship with Scotland (you can read about our collaborative funding agreements here) but we do have a researcher with a foot in both countries. Bruno Péault is Professor and Chair … Continue reading California/Scottish collaboration to heal bones

A story by Rob Stein at the Washington Post is reporting that the first patient to participate in Geron's groundbreaking embryonic stem cell-based trial for spinal cord injury has come forward. This is both exciting news and no news. It's exciting because scientists and people living with spinal cord injury and their families are all … Continue reading First patient from Geron spinal cord injury trial speaks up