Alan Trounson is President of CIRMSince I arrived at CIRM late in 2007 I have maintained a tradition of presenting some of the top science journal papers from the previous month or two at each of our Board meetings. Beginning last month, I decided this would be easier to digest in a written document than … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson – April’s stem cell highlights

(Comment: it appears that we already blogged about this study back in February. It's interesting work, though, so this second blog entry gets to remain.)CIRM grantee Sheng Ding at Scripps Research Institute has converted mouse skin cells into beating heart cells. If this sounds familiar, it's because Deepak Srivastava at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular … Continue reading Skin cells to beating heart cells in just 11 days

We’ve long claimed that one ideal role for iPS cells is modeling disease and screening drugs. In fact, we’re so committed to that idea we produced a video about it with CIRM grantee Bruce Conklin at the Gladstone Institutes. Scientific American also has a story on disease model their March issue, available online. Well, a … Continue reading iPS cells lead to drug discovery for heart disease, autism up next

The LA Times has a timely story in the week leading up to Valentine’s day summarizing the role of stem cells in mending a broken heart. There’s been a lot of talk — and a lot of money invested -- over the past few years pushing bone marrow stem cells as a tool for repairing … Continue reading Stem cells for a broken heart? Maybe one day

Nature has a story that features a promising use for stem cells, and also provided a creative outlet for whoever is writing headlines over there: “Cells snag top modelling job”. Nature isn’t covering America’s top model. They’re talking about modeling disease, in this case a heart condition called long QT syndrome. Both embryonic or iPS … Continue reading Stem cells model heart disease, test drugs

Cardiac muscle (red) with reprogrammedfibroblasts (green). Srivastava lab.The dogma was once that mature cell types like skin or nerves needed to be reprogrammed to an embryonic-like state before they could mature into a different cell type. Essentially, if a cell was a doctor it would need to go back to kindergarden before it could grow … Continue reading Fibroblasts reprogrammed to heart cells

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have used magnets to guide cardiac stem cells to damaged areas of animal hearts. In a press release, senior author Eduardo Marban said:"Stem cell therapies  show great promise as a treatment for heart injuries, but 24 hours after infusion, we found that less than 10 percent of the stem cells … Continue reading Magnets draw stem cells to heart damage

Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease have identified two molecules, called microRNAs, that push early heart cells to mature into the smooth muscle cells that line blood vessels. These same molecules also control when those smooth muscle cells divide to repair damage or in diseases such as cancer or atherosclerosis, which both involve … Continue reading Molecules found that control the development of blood vessel cells

Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease may have discovered why developing heart muscles cells multiply in numbers while the adult counterparts do not. This finding could lead to therapies that roll back the clocks on heart muscle cells after injury such as a heart attack, allowing those cells to multiply and repair the … Continue reading Support Cells Prevent Mature Heart from Repairing Damage

Researchers at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease found a genetic factor that helps in the earliest stages of heart development as the primitive tube loops around on itself and forms the separate chambers. This factor -- a short relative of DNA called microRNA -- has an identical counterpart in humans, leading the researchers to … Continue reading Genetic Factor Enables Immature Cells to Form Normal Heart Tissue