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 report this month is filled with examples of researchers improving our ability … Continue reading Alan Trounson’s monthly picks: advances in reprogramming

We are very proud to announce CIRM’s new website: http://www.cirm.ca.govIt’s certainly more beautiful than our old site, but in this case beauty is more than skin deep. It also has a lot of new features to help people stay up to date on stem cell research and follow our progress.One big change is on our … Continue reading Stem cell agency launches new website: more information, easier to use

Today is World Cancer Day. As groups around the globe seek to increase awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment, it seemed like a good time to discuss some of the flurry of work being done to try to reign in cancer stem cells. Most experts in the field consider those … Continue reading On World Cancer Day the cancer stem cell field is hot

We released an independently produced economic impact study this week that showed the agency has delivered significant benefit to the state. The first $1.5 billion in committed grants is generating 38,000 job years and $286 million in new tax revenue in California through 2014 (the press release about the report is here). CIRM’s job number … Continue reading Independant review estimates agency has created jobs and tax revenue for California

Several research teams have published results in the past couple years suggesting an infusion of stem cells may help a heart heal after a heart attack. The benefit has generally been modest and none of the teams has shown how the cells are really working. One group that reported somewhat better results was the CIRM-funded … Continue reading Study shows how stem cell therapy helps heal hearts

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group Altruistic cell and tissue donors are my heroes. Without them there would be no “cell” in stem cell research. Individuals have voluntarily donated skin, blood, bone marrow and embryos remaining after infertility treatment to CIRM-funded researchers. Researchers have transformed these donations into stem cell lines. A … Continue reading Coming Full Circle: Getting Research Results to Patients

Heart muscle cells generated from patient skin samplesSome grantees at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have made an interesting discovery about a sometimes deadly heart condition called ARVD/C.The condition comes on when a person is in their 20s. Using stem cells created from a patient’s skin, the scientists created heart tissue. But those youthful cells showed … Continue reading Heart condition mimicked in a lab dish, hope for finding new therapies

Para los subtítulos en español, haga clic en el botón "CC" en la ventana de vídeo.For English closed-captioning, click on the “cc” button in the video window.Invisible pins and needles: we’ve all felt them from time to time when a hand or a leg falls asleep and we try to shake away the numbness. The … Continue reading New video: Living with Multiple Sclerosis, Hoping for a Stem Cell Therapy | Nan Luke

Jonathan Thomas, Chair of the CIRM governing boardWhen the IOM released its report on the stem cell agency last December, praising us for things they said we had done well but also identifying areas and making a series of major recommendations on how we could improve our performance (you can see those recommendations here), we … Continue reading Governing board embraces change for a stronger future

CIRM video with subtitles for non-English speakers and the hearing impairedDisease shows no mercy. It doesn’t care how old you are, where you’re from, or what language you speak. It can affect us all. That’s why we’re launching multilingual subtitling to our YouTube video channel, CIRMTV. We hope this new feature will invite non-English speakers … Continue reading Do you speak stem cell? ¿Habla células madre?