Exciting new technologies such as regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and gene therapy are already at the forefront of a new era of medicine. And today, CIRM’s own Business Development Officer, Neil Littman, moderated a panel titled The Impact of Next Generation Personalized Medicine Technologies: How Disruptive Tech Continues to Advance the Industry, at the annual … Continue reading CIRM at Business of Personalized Medicine Summit
Biotechnology
Throwback Thursday: Scientists Create Synthetic Version of Earth’s Earliest Primordial Cells
Cells as we know them today—no matter the species—are feats of evolution; molecular machines with thousands of interlocking parts. But they didn’t start out that way. Using the latest tools from the new field of synthetic biology, a team of biophysicists from Tecnische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) in Munich, Germany, has constructed a synthetic version of … Continue reading Throwback Thursday: Scientists Create Synthetic Version of Earth’s Earliest Primordial Cells
Stem Cell Stories that Caught our Eye: A Zebrafish’s Stripes, Stem Cell Sound Waves and the Dangers of Stem Cell Tourism
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. How the Zebrafish Got its Stripes. Scientists in Germany have identified the different pigment cells that emerge during embryonic development and that determine the signature-striped … Continue reading Stem Cell Stories that Caught our Eye: A Zebrafish’s Stripes, Stem Cell Sound Waves and the Dangers of Stem Cell Tourism
A Tumor’s Trojan Horse: CIRM Researchers Build Nanoparticles to Infiltrate Hard-to-Reach Tumors
Some tumors are hard to find, while others are hard to destroy. Fortunately, a new research study from the University of California, Davis, has developed a new type of nanoparticle that could one day do both. Reporting in the latest issue of Nature Communications, researchers in the laboratory of UC Davis’ Dr. Kit Lam describe … Continue reading A Tumor’s Trojan Horse: CIRM Researchers Build Nanoparticles to Infiltrate Hard-to-Reach Tumors
FDA gives Asterias green light to start CIRM-funded clinical trial in spinal cord injury
This morning Asterias Biotherapeutics announced that they have been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to start a clinical trial using stem cells to treat spinal cord injury. It’s great news, doubly so as we are funding that trial. You can read more about the trial in a news release we just sent … Continue reading FDA gives Asterias green light to start CIRM-funded clinical trial in spinal cord injury
Building a Blueprint for the Human Brain
How does a brain blossom from a small cluster of cells into nature’s most powerful supercomputer? The answer has long puzzled scientists, but with new advances in stem cell biology, researchers are quickly mapping the complex suite of connections that together make up the brain. One of the latest breakthroughs comes from Dr. Daniel Geschwind … Continue reading Building a Blueprint for the Human Brain
Mapping Metastasis: Scientists Discover how Cancer Cells Colonize Distant Organs
How does cancer spread? How does it traverse from one organ to the next—often undetected—until it has colonized the far reaches of the human body? And more importantly, how can researchers stop this from happening? These questions plague even the most renowned experts, but new research from scientists at Brown University has uncovered clues to … Continue reading Mapping Metastasis: Scientists Discover how Cancer Cells Colonize Distant Organs
Blood Test Reveals Alzheimer’s Disease Risk, CIRM-Funded Study Finds
By the time someone begins to experience the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, the damage has already been done. An accumulation of toxic proteins is causing brain cells to whither and die, taking with them a lifetime of precious memories. But what if we had a definitive test that could predict one’s risk of developing … Continue reading Blood Test Reveals Alzheimer’s Disease Risk, CIRM-Funded Study Finds
A Glimpse Inside the Cellular Universe: Scientists Track the Growth of an Organism, One Cell at a Time
Trying to keep tabs on how an organism grows from a single fertilized egg into an embryo, cell by cell, is hard work. So hard in fact, that no one’s quite figured out how to do it. The problem, as researchers have lamented, is that there’s just too much happening—all at the same time—for the … Continue reading A Glimpse Inside the Cellular Universe: Scientists Track the Growth of an Organism, One Cell at a Time
Confining Cells within Geometric Structures Key to Replicating Embryonic Development
It’s like trying to capture, and then recreate, a moment in time: the exact instant after fertilization when a small group of dividing cells begin to organize themselves into the various cellular layers that will one day make up the skin, the heart, the liver and the brain. But for all the advances in our … Continue reading Confining Cells within Geometric Structures Key to Replicating Embryonic Development
The Stem Cellar 