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
Disease Areas
Stem cells model heart disease, test drugs
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
Protein Linked to Normal Prostate Stem Cells and to Cancer
When I was the editor of a national magazine for physicians, I told my writers to do any story they found on prostate issues, with our overwhelming male audience then, I knew those stories would get high readership scores. My readers back then would have loved today’s news out of UCLA. The team there, led … Continue reading Protein Linked to Normal Prostate Stem Cells and to Cancer
Knocking out leukemia stem cells
A good report about bone marrow transplantation in progress comes from the National Hockey League, of all places. Mandi Schwartz, a Yale women’s hockey player, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and is being treated at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. In the name of full disclosure, that’s the center that cured my mother’s lymphoma, … Continue reading Knocking out leukemia stem cells
Basic research and the search for cures
Two interesting reports today discuss the relationship between basic research and the kind of translational research that is the most visible sign of progress toward cures. In his blog, the director of the bay area biotech collaborative QB3 Regis Kelly writes about public speakers at the Translational Medicine Alliance speaking out against basic research. He … Continue reading Basic research and the search for cures
Hope for CIRM leukemia disease team
The clock is ticking on the 14 CIRM Disease Team projects issued last October, which are working under a four-year deadline to hit the clinic. The $20 million acute myeloid leukemia project headed up by Irv Weissman of Stanford University just reported some promising progress. Weissman and his team are developing a chemotherapy drug that … Continue reading Hope for CIRM leukemia disease team
Resting stem cells are cancer-prone
CIRM grantees at University of California, San Francisco, have published a Cell Stem Cell paper explaining why blood-forming stem cells accumulate cancer-causing mutations with age. Basically, they found that inactivity is genetically risky for the cells.The blood-forming stem cells exist in the bone marrow where they divide periodically to form new cells of the blood … Continue reading Resting stem cells are cancer-prone
Fibroblasts reprogrammed to heart cells
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
Cancer stem cells at the heart of melanoma
A team led by Irving Weissman at Stanford University School of Medicine has found the cancer-initiating stem cells in melanoma. Weissman has CIRM Comprehensive and Disease Team Awards relating to his cancer stem cell work.According to a Stanford press release:The finding is significant because the existence of such a cell in the aggressive skin cancer … Continue reading Cancer stem cells at the heart of melanoma
Stem cells deliver anti-cancer therapy to treat glioma
Looks like the FDA agrees with our choice of grantees. They’ve approved a clinical trial based on work led by Karen Aboody (shown in photo) at City of Hope using neural stem cells to target and kill high-grade gliomas. She’s the leader of a CIRM disease team that we funded to develop a second generation … Continue reading Stem cells deliver anti-cancer therapy to treat glioma
The Stem Cellar 