Our grantee Joe Wu of Stanford University just published a paper that goes a long way toward explaining just how laborious it is to develop therapies based on stem cells.It all sounds so easy. Find a stem cell in the body (or mature certain kind of cell from embryonic or iPS cells), then put that … Continue reading How best to deliver stem cells to the heart?

When you look at a person you can usually estimate an approximate age (excluding the pages of some celebrity magazines). But presented with just a cell, there are few visible indicators of age like grey hair or a sagging chin.Until yesterday. That's when a group of scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles announced … Continue reading New cellular clock reads iPS cells’ age as newborns

Staining of slow-cycling sweat gland cells (green) with the protein laminin (red) and the fluorescent stain DAPI (blue)Image by Yvonne LeungMaybe it's all the running I've been doing, but the word "sweat" caught my eye in this story. Sweat, like everything else it seems, needs it's stem cells.A group at the University of Southern California … Continue reading No sweat? Blame the sweat gland stem cells

Pluripotent stem cells, created from human skin or mouse ear tissue, are shown here becoming endoderm cell. The endoderm is one of the three primary germ layers that ultimately contribute to the development of vital organs (liver, pancreas, etc.). The yellow highlights the Sox17 protein, expressed during endoderm development. Cell nuclei are shown in magenta. … Continue reading Grooved surface increases the yeild of iPS cells

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 Cells for colitis. A team of British and Danish researcher found a population of intermediate stem cells that divide more readily than the adult stem … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: colitis, ALS, diabetes and scaling up production of nerve cells

Jeff Sheey, HIV/AIDS patient advocate on our governing boardI don't mean to blow our own horn, but... OK, that's exactly what I mean to do. Go us!Two CIRM folks are on fellow blogger Paul Knoepfler's top 12 list of finalists for stem cell person of the year. This is Knoepfler's second year holding this contest, … Continue reading Two CIRM leaders on the top 12 list for stem cell person of the year

Alan TrounsonLeading an organization, any organization, is never an easy task. There are tough decisions to be made at every step along the way, decisions that can affect the future of the organization and the fate of those working for it. And when that organization is pioneering a new way of accelerating a new kind … Continue reading Alan Trounson, scientist and innovator, to step down as President

Joseph Wu of Stanford University and six other scientists will be sending stem cell experiments to the international space stationOne of our grantees will boldly send stem cells where no CIRM grantee has gone before: space, that is.Joseph Wu of Stanford University is the recipient of a Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) award … Continue reading CIRM grantees send stem cell experiments to the international space station

When AIDS first emerged more than 30 years ago, it was considered a death sentence. More than 600,000 people have died of AIDS since the epidemic began. Today, there are more than one million living with HIV in the United States. Now, the HIV/AIDS community is talking about a realistic cure for the disease – … Continue reading Best of the blog: Progress toward an HIV/AIDS cure

Several of CIRM's grantees are located down on the Mesa that's the namesake of the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa (in La Jolla, near San Diego). Among those is Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, which has several scientists talking about their CIRM-funded work as part of the meeting. Sanford-Burnham wrote in their blog about a … Continue reading CIRM grantees discuss heart failure research at Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa