Judy Chou, Ph.D. Judy Chou, Ph.D. has been appointed to the Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee (ICOC), the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Dr. Chou is the President, CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of AltruBio, Inc. a clinical stage biotech company that is focused on developing novel … Continue reading Judy Chou, Ph.D., Appointed to Governing Board of California’s Stem Cell & Gene Therapy Agency
Harvard
Study shows sleep deprivation impairs stem cells in the cornea
We spend around one third of our life sleeping—or at least we should. Not getting enough sleep can have serious consequences on many aspects of our health and has been linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. A study by the American Sleep Apnea Association found that some 70 percent of Americans report getting … Continue reading Study shows sleep deprivation impairs stem cells in the cornea
Regulated, Reputable and Reliable: FDA’s Taking Additional Steps to Advance Safe and Effective Regenerative Medicine Products
Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research In February 2020, CIRM presented a series of benchmarks for the responsible delivery of stem cell and regenerative medicine products. These benchmarks are outlined in the publication Regulated, reliable and reputable: Protect patients with uniform standards for stem cell treatments. In a nutshell, CIRM … Continue reading Regulated, Reputable and Reliable: FDA’s Taking Additional Steps to Advance Safe and Effective Regenerative Medicine Products
Charting a course for the future
A new home for stem cell research? Have you ever been at a party where someone says “hey, I’ve got a good idea” and then before you know it everyone in the room is adding to it with ideas and suggestions of their own and suddenly you find yourself with 27 pages of notes, all … Continue reading Charting a course for the future
An Atlas of the Human Heart that May Guide Development of New Therapies
By Lisa Kadyk, PhD. CIRM Senior Science Officer Illustration of a man's heart - Courtesy Science Photo I love maps; I still have auto club maps of various parts of the country in my car. But, to tell the truth, those maps just don’t have as much information as I can get by typing in … Continue reading An Atlas of the Human Heart that May Guide Development of New Therapies
Stem Cell Roundup: Knowing the nose, stem cell stress and cell fate math.
The Stem Cellar’s Image of the Week. Our favorite image this week, comes to us from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Looking like a psychedelic Rorschach test, the fluorescence microscopy depicts mouse olfactory epithelium (in green), a sheet of tissue that develops in the nose. The team identified a new … Continue reading Stem Cell Roundup: Knowing the nose, stem cell stress and cell fate math.
Bioengineers Build 3D Model of Human Heart Ventricle
After more than a decade, scientists at Harvard University finally made a breakthrough in their efforts to create a heart. According to a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers successfully bioengineered a three-dimensional model of a human left heart ventricle. This important development brings them one step closer to their goal, creating a … Continue reading Bioengineers Build 3D Model of Human Heart Ventricle
A scalable, clinic-friendly recipe for converting skin cells to muscle cells
Way back in 1987, about two decades before Shinya Yamanaka would go on to identify four proteins that can reprogram skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), Harold Weintraub’s lab identified the first “master control” protein, MyoD, which can directly convert a skin cell into a muscle cell. Though MyoD opened up new approaches … Continue reading A scalable, clinic-friendly recipe for converting skin cells to muscle cells
Stem Cell Round: Improving memory, building up “good” fat, nanomedicine
Stem Cell Photo of the Week In honor of brain awareness week, our featured stem cell photo is of the brain! Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Stem Cell Institute identified a genetic switch that could potentially improve memory during aging and symptoms of PTSD. Shown in this picture are dentate gyrus cells … Continue reading Stem Cell Round: Improving memory, building up “good” fat, nanomedicine
Stem Cell Tools: Helping Scientists Model Complex Diseases
This blog is part of the Month of CIRM series and the first of two blogs focused on how CIRM-funded infrastructure initiatives are developing useful tools to advance stem cell research. Human stem cells are powerful tools for studying human disease. Animal models like mice have been and continue to be important for studying physiological … Continue reading Stem Cell Tools: Helping Scientists Model Complex Diseases
The Stem Cellar 