“So, what do you do?”If you are a researcher and don’t have a compelling answer to this question, you risk more than just boring your listener. You risk losing the attention of politicians, local leaders, potential donors and reporters. You could also lose public support for science funding if you can’t explain why your research … Continue reading Wow your audience: join CIRM’s science elevator pitch challenge

Cross-sectional schematic illustration of ViaCyte device It’s not often a promising new approach to one of the biggest health problems in the US today gets called “the holy grail” of treatments, but that’s what one independent expert called the type 1 diabetes therapy that ViaCyte is developing. So, it’s no wonder that ViaCyte’s therapy is not … Continue reading Diabetes Beware! JDRF and CIRM Add $3 Million to its Support for ViaCyte’s Promising Stem Cell Therapy

How do you get researchers who are more used to talking about their work in dense scientific terms sprinkled with jargon, to translate that into every day English, something that is not only understandable to someone without a science background, but also fascinating and engaging?That’s the goal of a couple of different workshops at the … Continue reading America’s Scientist Idol: conveying science to the public

Cynthia Schaffer supports CIRM’s Business Development and Industry Engagement and Commercialization activities. Keeping up with the news in the Stem Cell world is a bit like riding a hurricane. We could not do it without the dedicated efforts of our friends who devote their precious free time to giving back to the community via their … Continue reading Keeping up with stem cell research: it takes a village

A stem cell heartbeat for Valentine's day:These heart muscle cells are created from embryonic stem cells. Although on most days they don't beat in time to music, they do hold promise for mending broken hearts.Read about these and other stem cells that could be used to treat heart damage after heart attacks, or repair damage … Continue reading Hope for broken hearts this Valentine’s day

The 2013 California Biotechnology Industry report has some good things to say about the state's biotech industry. The state ranks number one in jobs, development of new therapies, venture capitol investment, and federal funding. Jobs in the industry also held steady through the recent recession, providing much-needed employment and tax revenue for the state.The report … Continue reading California’s biotech industry ranked number one in new therapy development

The company StemCells Inc has released data about the first group of patients participating in their stem cell clinical trial for spinal cord injury.But first, the full disclosure. We didn’t fund this work, but we did award this company a Disease Team award to continue the trial. The trial is based on work by our … Continue reading Positive signs for spinal cord injury trial

Are you curious what, exactly California’s stem cell agency funds? Where the money goes? What results we’ve had? How much money we’ve spent?Answers to these questions and more are now available on an FAQ that we unveiled along with our new website last week. You can see that FAQ here.We put this resource together because … Continue reading Your stem cell agency FAQs answered

Turns out we’re not the only people who think our grantees do great work. Two of our grantees at University of California, Santa Barbara and Stanford received prestigious awards for their stem cell research.Joanna WysockaJoanna Wysocka from Stanford received an award from the Vilcek Foundation, which honors foreign-born scientists and artists (Wysocka was born in … Continue reading Two CIRM grantees win awards for their work

Blood cells like these are all generated from blood-forming stem cells in the bone marrowThe stem cell field passed a milestone recently, according to the Worldwide Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation: There have now been more than 1 million blood stem cell transplants worldwide. This milestone came not long after the death of E. … Continue reading One millionth blood stem cell transplant