The global consulting firm Frost and Sullivan held a webinar yesterday in which they noted health care systems everywhere are facing an increasing challenge of costly chronic care. They suggested health care providers have started to embrace regenerative medicine as a viable alternative. Because of its power to change the course of disease, the consultants … Continue reading Global stem cell market predicted to reach $40 billion in five years, even bigger when mixed with new technologies
Author: Don Gibbons
Cranking up stem cell production for when therapies are approved for widespread use
Getting a cell therapy from the research bench to patients requires leaping many hurdles. Perhaps two of the highest arise when proving the potential therapy is safe enough to begin clinical trials and then when scaling up production to meet the demand of thousands of patients. An even dozen CIRM-funded projects have made it over … Continue reading Cranking up stem cell production for when therapies are approved for widespread use
Stem cell stories that caught our eye: fixing defects we got from mom, lung repair and staunching chronic nerve pain
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. Two ways to clean up mitochondrial defects. Every student gets it drilled into them that we get half our genes from mom and half from … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: fixing defects we got from mom, lung repair and staunching chronic nerve pain
Giving stem cells the right physical cues produced micro hearts, maybe a tool to avoid birth defects
Heart defects, one of the leading types of birth defects, often result from drugs mom is taking, but we have not had a good model of developing fetal hearts to test drugs for these side effects. Now, a team at the University of California, Berkeley and the Gladstone Institutes has created micro heart chambers in … Continue reading Giving stem cells the right physical cues produced micro hearts, maybe a tool to avoid birth defects
Two studies show genes and their switches critical to brain cancer’s resistance to therapy
Two California teams discovered genetic machinery that cancer stem cells in high-grade brain cancers use to evade therapy. One CIRM-funded team at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles pinpointed a family of genes that turn off other genes that chemotherapy targets —effectively hiding them from the chemo. The other team at the University of California, San Diego … Continue reading Two studies show genes and their switches critical to brain cancer’s resistance to therapy
Stem cell stories that caught our eye: correcting cystic fibrosis gene, improving IVF outcome, growing bone and Dolly
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. Cystic Fibrosis gene corrected in stem cells. A team at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston corrected the defective gene that causes cystic … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: correcting cystic fibrosis gene, improving IVF outcome, growing bone and Dolly
Parkinson’s blog explains the science behind turning skin cells into a model for the disease
When my colleagues and I write about new advances in stem cell science we often rely on what I refer to as the Sydney Harris method of explaining the science. One of the cartoonist’s most reproduced drawings shows a researcher writing a series of steps on a chalk board with one in the middle being … Continue reading Parkinson’s blog explains the science behind turning skin cells into a model for the disease
Not all reprogrammed stem cells are the same—an eye-catching example
Scientists can take any adult tissue whether skin, blood or nerve and use genetic factors to reprogram them into embryonic-like stem cells. But the Nobel Prize-winning technique does not produce stem cells with equal ability to mature into various tissues needed to repair damage from disease or injury. A team at St. Jude Children’s Research … Continue reading Not all reprogrammed stem cells are the same—an eye-catching example
Stem cell stories that caught our eye: Immune therapy for HIV, nerves grown on diamonds and how stem cells talk
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. Trendy CAR T therapy tried on HIV. The hottest trend in cancer therapy today is using CAR-T cells to attack and rid the body of … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: Immune therapy for HIV, nerves grown on diamonds and how stem cells talk
High school and middle school teachers use summer to develop stem cell lesson plans.
At CIRM, we have developed programs that try to capture and train budding young scientific minds starting in the upper reaches of k-12 schools, through undergrad college, graduate work and post doctoral training. So, we are thrilled when one of our partner institutions takes on that challenge with a new robust effort. The Buck Institute … Continue reading High school and middle school teachers use summer to develop stem cell lesson plans.
The Stem Cellar 