Vanessa Lupian and her Mother Veronica discuss Vanessa's liver transplantImagine browsing a restaurant menu and all you see is a list of toxins that can cause constant vomiting, hallucinations, emergency dialysis treatment, brain damage, and even death. That was the predicament of 13 year old Vanessa Lupian who spoke, along with her mother Veronica, to … Continue reading Liver transplant saves girl’s life, but not everyone can get one: stem cell-derived liver cells to the rescue?

Mark TuszynskiI have friends who are paralyzed so I admit to being biased when I read about promising research to repair the spinal cord. I’d like to see my friends walk, or, at least have more movement. The ability to simply hug their kids would be life-changing. Today, there’s a new paper published by a … Continue reading stem cells partially repair spinal cord injuries in rats

Ear hair cell derived from embryonic stem cells | Stefan Heller, Stanford University School of MedicineThis week researchers at the University of Sheffield in England used cells derived from embryonic stem cells to help restore hearing in gerbils. One note: the scientists weren’t driven by a concern for gerbil hearing. It just so happens that … Continue reading Stem cells repair nerves damaged in hearing loss

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group  CIRM recently posted a request for applications to form a stem cell repository or bank that would enable us to store and supply researchers with high quality stem cell lines. (We blogged about that initiative here.) As part of our work in setting up … Continue reading Cell and Tissue Donors: Keeping the Faith in Breakthrough Research

I’m currently reading a fascinating book that sums up the many ways people concocted to kill each other during the jazz age. Mostly women killing their husbands (The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum).One thing I’ve learned from the book is that hope and false advertising spring eternal. In those days, radium was sold as a … Continue reading What do stem cells and radium have in common?

It was a late night for CIRM staff and board members, but worth the long hours given the importance of the evening’s decisions. Tonight the board voted to approve funding for four additional teams of researchers working toward therapies in heart disease, a form of blindness called retinitis pigmentosa, Alzheimer's disease and muscular dystrophy. During … Continue reading New funding for heart disease, blindness, Alzheimer’s, muscular dystrophy

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.Last month’s blog discussed two papers that made advances in “dual modality” therapies; … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — August’s stem cell research highlights

This weekend CIRM grantees at StemCells Inc made a splash at the annual meeting of the International Spinal Cord Society. They reported that two people with spinal cord injuries in a clinical trial had regained some ability to feel touch and heat.The company is testing injections of stem cells into the damaged region of the … Continue reading CIRM grantees show preliminary signs of success in spinal cord injury trial

One thing about working at CIRM is that you meet a lot of amazing people living with a lot of disease that are all in need of cures. One of those people I’ve met is Virginia Knepper-Doyle, who has the most common cause of blindness in older people called macular degeneration. We went to her … Continue reading Finding a therapy for macular degeneration

Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Jeff Sheehy and CIRM governing board chair Jonathan ThomasYou find out the most unexpected things in announcements from state bodies. For instance, a recent news release from State Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg’s office contained this line: Charles J. Sheehy, a Democrat from San Francisco, has been reappointed as a … Continue reading HIV/AIDS advocate Jeff Sheehy reappointed to CIRM’s governing board