Tuesday was a very proud day here at CIRM headquarters. We were able to announce the enrollment of the first patient in a clinical trial funded, in part, by the agency. It was also a bit of a somber day as Paul Knoepfler pointed out in his blog yesterday. It meant the patient had recently … Continue reading More stem cell firsts — spinal cord injury and blindness

Today is a landmark day for CIRM: We announced that the first patient had been enrolled in a clinical trial based on stem cell agency funding. You can read our press release here.The patient was part of Menlo Park-based Geron's phase I trial for spinal cord injury, which was awarded $25 million from CIRM in … Continue reading First patient enrolls in a clinical trial funded by CIRM

Last week CIRM held our almost-yearly grantee meeting, which brought together our grantees from across California plus some international collaborators and world-renowned stem cell leaders who gave some riveting talks. CIRM grantee Paul Knoepfler from UC Davis was blogging from the meeting. He had this to say:Earlier I threw out there the idea that many … Continue reading Meeting of California’s stem cell minds

The new UCSF stem cell building has made the news again. The September 19 issue of The New Yorker, architecture critic Paul Goldberger features UCSF’s Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine as one of three new science buildings in the United States “crafted with the specific intention of fostering interaction and connections, as a means … Continue reading UCSF stem cell building: generating therapies and making news

Tom Vasich at the University of California Irvine did a Q&A with CIRM grantee Frank LaFerla in advance of the September 30 Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Research Conference. La Ferla and his colleagues have been working on stem cell-based therapies for Alzheimer's disease. In a question about the public health impact of Alzheimer's disease LaFerla … Continue reading Alzheimer’s leader discusses stem cell progress

Northern White Rhinoceros; Photo credit: San Diego ZooWhat are those rhinos doing in a stem cell blog? Researchers at Scripps Research Institute have converted skin cells from those rhinos (or their San Diego zoo-mates) into reprogrammed stem cells. The team also created stem cells out of skin samples from a primate called a drill.Both projects … Continue reading Stem cells from rhino skin

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.This month produced several papers that address fundamental issues in the field of … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — August’s stem cell research highlights

A few weeks ago CIRM grantee at UC Davis Paul Knoepfler wrote a blog entry distinguishing hype from hope in the stem cell research field. This is no small task. The hype in this field is incredible (as evidence, see all too many headlines on the topic). But then, so is the hope. CIRM was … Continue reading Hope vs. hype in stem cell research

The CIRM governing board meeting yesterday, held on the Stanford campus, included a number of important agenda items — planning awards worth $1.8 million and changes to the grants review process to name a few — and one seeming sleeper item titled "Presentation and discussion of CIRM Translational Grant Portfolio." Yawn, right? But that's the … Continue reading Progress toward stem cell clinical trials?

Guest blogger Alan Trounson is President of CIRMYesterday, my colleague Uta Grieshammer used this space to describe a Nature paper out of Irv Weissman’s Stanford lab that sought to pin down which cells are responsible for the regrowth of the tip of a mouse’s toe after amputation.Salamanders and many lower organisms have the ability to … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson: What A Mouse’s Toe Tells Us about CIRM’s Investment