Alan Trounson is President of CIRMBob Edwards died April 10th in his sleep after a long illness. Bob was a friend, mentor, supporter and close associate for the vast majority of scientists interested in reproduction and infertility worldwide. He received the Nobel prize for medicine/physiology in 2010. Robert G. Edwards, father of IVF, 1925-2013 (Photo: … Continue reading Fond memories of working with Bob Edwards, the father of IVF

An international team of researchers recently reported a tantalizing, if very distant, possibility of being able to reset the appetite control switch in our brains. With an estimated 1.4 billion people overweight worldwide this could be a major boon to health and health care costs. In the U.S. alone weight related health issues cost more … Continue reading Stem cells discovered that might lead to on-off switch for appetite

We recently pulled together all our beautiful images of stem cells, patient advocates and snazzy science shots and created a virtual scrapbook on Pinterest. Pinterest has mainly been used as a way of collecting ideas for home projects or crafts, but in the past year it’s been picked up by scientific groups as a way … Continue reading Stem cell agency images and information now on Pinterest

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group Human embryonic stem cells generated from embryos donated after vitro fertilizationAt CIRM, we often get questions from people wanting to know about donation of frozen embryos for use in research. The modified correspondence below is an example of the type of email I receive:My name … Continue reading Numbers matter in frozen embryo donation

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. Building blood vessels where you need them. One of the treats of my professional career was the opportunity to work with Judah Folkman, the brilliant … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye this week

When we were shooting the elevator pitches at the grantee meeting one thing that struck me was how passionate many of the scientists are about the diseases they are trying to treat. Of those, Carrie Miceli and Stanley Nelson of UCLA stood out. They are a husband and wife team whose son has muscular dystrophy. … Continue reading Amy’s favorite stem cell pitches: Women scientists committed to finding new therapies

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.My reports the past few months have had many examples of people making … Continue reading Alan Trounson discusses iPS cell advances and a new stem cell type in his monthly update

Sandhill Crane migration, courtesy of Serge MelkiHealing cells migrate toward injured tissue not unlike how animals carry out their annual migrations – which is to say that it’s all a bit of a mystery. Grantees at UC Davis are working to clear up at least some of the mystery as a first step in learning … Continue reading Guiding stem cell migration to heal wounds

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 in space. Since one of the first stories I ever wrote professionally was about how Grumman Corp. was building a beam builder that … Continue reading Stem cell Stories that caught our eye—week of March 25

When we first came up with the idea for the Elevator Pitch Challenge the idea was to videotape all the entries at a big meeting of researchers who get funding from us. But there’s always someone who has to be different, someone who doesn’t play by the rules. In this case it was the folks … Continue reading Kevin’s favorite elevator pitches use graphics to tell a story