It’s always nice to be told you are doing a good job. It’s even nicer when it’s unexpected. That’s certainly the case when we, the Communications Team at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, found out we’d been named as a finalist for the Patient Advocacy Award (non-profit category) as part of the Phacilitate Advanced Therapies Awards.
To be honest, we didn’t even know we’d been nominated. But who cares. We are now in the final. And we are in good company. Our friends at Americans for Cures, were also nominated. They are advocates for stem cell research in California and were hugely instrumental in getting Proposition 14 passed in 2020, that’s the voter initiative that refunded CIRM with $5.5 billion.
While we may focus on different areas we all share a common goal, a desire to ensure that the voice of the patient is front and center in all that we do. At CIRM we have patient advocates on our Board and on the panel of experts who review applications for our funding. We have patient advocates helping guide the clinical trials we fund. And now, as we expand our efforts to reach out in every community in California, we have patients and patient advocates guiding that work as well.
We do this work because it’s important and because, without the support of the patient advocacy community, we wouldn’t be here.
It’s an old cliché that when you are in this position you say, “it’s an honor just to be nominated.” But in this case, it’s true.
Sean Entin, stroke survivor and founder of Stroke Hacker
The word “miraculous” gets tossed around a lot in the world of medicine, mostly by people who have made an unexpected recovery from a deadly or life-threatening condition. In Sean Entin’s case calling his recovery from an almost-fatal stroke could be called miraculous, but I think you would also have to say it’s due to hard work, determination, and an attitude that never even considered giving up.
Sean had a stroke in 2011. Doctors didn’t think he’d survive. He was put into a coma and underwent surgery to create an opening in his skull to give his brain time and space to heal. When he woke he couldn’t walk or talk, couldn’t count. Doctors told him he would never walk again.
They didn’t know Sean. Fast forward to today. Sean is active, has completed two 5k races – that’s two more than me – and has created Stroke Hacker, a program designed to help others going through what he did.
Sean is a remarkable man, which is why I sat down to chat with him for the latest episode of the California Institutes for Regenerative Medicine’s podcast, ‘Talking ‘Bout (re)Generation’.
He is a fascinating man, and he makes for fascinating company. Enjoy the podcast.
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has invested more than $80 million in stroke research, including one clinical trial currently underway.
Yesterday the CIRM team were honored to be part of the San Francisco Pride Parade. To walk along the route with colleagues and friends, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of cheering people was such a fun way to spend the day, and gave us a chance to introduce ourselves to many people who may not have known who we were (although I did get several people saying “I voted for you” and “Go Regenerative Medicine”). To be able to share in the joy that people clearly felt at having the parade back again after a Covid-inflicted absence was just a delight. Here’s some images of the day.
People were creative in finding the best spot to view the paradeTreecy brought Uma Thurman (no, that is her name) along for the marchThere were lots of great signs, some of which we can even show on a public website!Even the dogs were stylish
It is estimated that as many as 90 percent of people in industrialized countries who die every day, die from diseases of aging such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Of those still alive the numbers aren’t much more reassuring. More than 80 percent of people over the age of 65 have a chronic medical condition, while 68 percent have two or more.
Current medications can help keep some of those conditions, such as high blood pressure, under control but regenerative medicine wants to do a lot more than that. We want to turn back the clock and restore function to damaged organs and tissues and limbs. That research is already underway and we are inviting you to a public event to hear all about that work and the promise it holds.
On June 16th from 3p – 4.30p PST we are holding a panel discussion exploring the impact of regenerative medicine on aging. We’ll hear from experts on heart disease and stroke; we will look at other ground breaking research into aging; and we’ll discuss the vital role patients and patient advocates play in helping advance this work.
The discussion is taking place in San Francisco at the annual conference of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. But you can watch it from the comfort of your own home. That’s because we are going to live stream the event.
At the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) we are fortunate in having enough money to fund the most promising research to be tested in a clinical trial. Those are expensive projects, often costing tens of millions of dollars. But sometimes the projects that come to our Board start out years before in much more humble circumstances, raising money through patient advocates, tapping into the commitment and ingenuity of those affected by a disease, to help advance the search for a treatment.
That was definitely the case with a program the CIRM Board voted to approve yesterday, investing more than $11 million dollars to fund a Phase 2 clinical trial testing a cell therapy for dysphagia. That’s a debilitating condition that affects many people treated for head and neck cancer.
Patients with head and neck cancer often undergo surgery and/or radiation to remove the tumors. As a result, they may develop problems swallowing and this can lead to serious complications such as malnutrition, dehydration, social isolation, or a dependence on using a feeding tube. Patients may also inhale food or liquids into their lungs causing infections, pneumonia and death. The only effective therapy is a total laryngectomy where the larynx or voice box is removed, leaving the person unable to speak.
Dr. Peter Belafsky and his team at the University of California at Davis are developing a therapeutic approach using Autologous Muscle Derived Progenitor Cells (AMDC), cells derived from a biopsy of the patient’s own muscle, elsewhere in the body. Those AMDCs are injected into the tongue of the patient, where they fuse with existing muscle fibers to increase tongue strength and ability to swallow.
The $11,015,936 that Dr. Belafsky is getting from CIRM will enable them to test this approach in patients. But without grass roots support the program might never have made it this far.
Ed Steger is a long-term survivor of head and neck cancer, he’s also the President of the National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders (NFOSD). In 2007, after being treated for his cancer, Ed developed a severe swallowing disorder. It helped motivate him to push for better treatment options.
In 2013, a dozen swallowing disorder patients visited UC Davis to learn how stem cells might help people with dysphagia. (You can read about that visit here). Ed says: “We were beyond thrilled with the possibilities and drawing on patients and other UCD contacts our foundation raised enough funds to support a small UCD clinical trial under the guidance of Dr. Belafsky in mouse models that demonstrated these possibilities.”
A few years later that small funding by patients and their family members grew into a well-funded Phase I/II human clinical trial. Ed says the data that trial produced is helping advance the search for treatments.
“Skipping forward to the present, this has now blossomed into an additional $11 million grant, from CIRM, to continue the work that could be a game changer for millions of Americans who suffer annually from oral phase dysphagia. My hat is off to all those that have made this possible… the donors, patient advocates, and the dedicated committed researchers and physicians who are performing this promising and innovative research.”
Our hats are off to them too. Their efforts are making what once might have seemed impossible, a real possibility.
The COVID pandemic put a lot of things on hold over the last two years. But thanks to the vaccine and boosters more and more people are feeling comfortable about getting out and about again. Case in point, the Orange County Marathon was held for the first time in two years on Sunday, May 1st.
Huntington’s disease is a particularly nasty disease. It’s a rare, inherited condition that leads to the steady breakdown of nerve cells in the brain, affecting movement and thinking and can cause severe psychiatric issues including mania and bipolar disorder. Treatments are limited and there is no cure.
Frances Saldana, a great supporter of CIRM and an amazing advocate for HD, told us they wanted the event to “add friendship, hope, and fun in the lives of our scientists, patient advocates, and family members as we go together on our journey in search of a treatment and/or cure for Huntington’s disease. It was a really good day, and we had a lot of fun.”
What started out as an effort by Google to crack down on predatory stem cell clinics advertising bogus therapies seems to be getting diluted. Now the concern is whether that will make it easier for these clinics to lure unsuspecting patients to pay good money for bad treatments?
A little background might help here. For years Google placed no restrictions on ads by clinics that claimed their stem cell “therapies” could cure or treat all manner of ailments. Then in September of 2019 Google changed its policy and announced it was going to restrict advertisements for stem cell clinics offering unproven, cellular and gene therapies.
This new policy was welcomed by people like Dr. Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell scientist at UC Davis and longtime critic of these clinics. In his blog, The Niche, he said it was great news:
“Google Ads for stem cell clinics have definitely driven hundreds if not thousands of customers to unproven stem cell clinics. It’s very likely that many of the patients who have ended up in the hospital due to bad outcomes from clinic injections first went to those firms because of Google ads. These ads and certain particularly risky clinics also are a real threat to the legitimate stem cell and gene therapy fields.”
Now the search-engine giant seems to be adjusting that policy. Google says that starting July 11 it will permit ads for stem cell therapies approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That’s fine. Anything that has gone through the FDA’s rigorous approval process deserves to be allowed to advertise.
The real concern lies with another adjustment to the policy where Google says it will allow companies to post ads as long as they are “exclusively educational or informational in nature, regardless of regulatory approval status.” The problem is, Google doesn’t define what constitutes “educational or informational”. That leaves the door open for these clinics to say pretty much anything they want and claim it meets the new guidelines.
To highlight that point Gizmodo did a quick search on Google using the phrase “stem cells for neuropathy” and quickly came up with a series of ads that are offering “therapies” clearly not approved by the FDA. One ad claimed it was “FDA registered”, a meaningless phrase but one clearly designed to add an air of authenticity to whatever remedy they were peddling.
The intent behind Google’s change of policy is clearly good, to allow companies offering FDA-approved therapies to advertise. However, the outcome may not be quite so worthy, and might once again put patients at risk of being tricked into trying “therapies” that will almost certainly not do them any good, and might even put them in harm’s way.
Imagine you or someone you love is diagnosed with a rare disease and then told, “There is no cure, there are no treatments and because it’s so rare no one is even doing any research into developing a treatment.” Sadly for millions of people that’s an all-too-common occurrence.
There are around 7,000 rare diseases affecting some 25-30 million Americans. Some of these are ultra-rare conditions where worldwide there may be only a few hundred people, or even a few dozen, diagnosed with it. And of all these rare diseases, only 5% have an approved therapy.
For the people struggling with a rare disease, finding a sense of hope in the face of all this can be challenging. Some say it feels as if they have been abandoned by the health care system. Others fight back, working to raise both awareness about the disease and funds to help support research to develop a treatment. But doing that without experience in the world of fund raising and drug development can pose a whole new series of challenges.
That’s where Ultragenyx comes into the picture. The company has a simple commitment to patients. “We aim to develop safe and effective treatments for many serious rare diseases as fast as we can, and we are committed to helping the whole rare disease community move forward by sharing our science and expertise to advance future development, whether by us or others.”
They live up to that commitment by hosting a Rare Entrepreneur Bootcamp. Every year they bring together a dozen or so patient or family organizations that are actively raising funds for a potential treatment approach and give them a 3-day crash course in what they’ll need to know to have a chance to succeed in rare disease drug development.
A panel discussion at the Rare Entrepreneur Bootcamp
Dr. Emil Kakkis, the founder of Ultragenyx, calls these advocates “warriors” because of all the battles they are going to face. He told them, “Get used to hearing no, because you are going to hear that a lot. But keep fighting because that’s the only way you get to ‘yes’.”
The bootcamp brings in experts to coach and advise the advocates on everything from presentation skills when pitching a potential investor, to how to collaborate with academic researchers, how to design a clinical trial, what they need to understand about manufacturing or intellectual property rights.
In a blog about the event, Arjun Natesan, vice president of Translational Research at Ultragenyx, wrote, “We are in a position to share what we’ve learned from bringing multiple drugs to market – and making the process easier for these organizations aligns with our goal of treating as many rare disease patients as possible. Our aim is to empower these organizations with guidance and tools and help facilitate their development of life-changing rare disease treatments.”
For the advocates it’s not just a chance to gain an understanding of the obstacles ahead and how to overcome them, it’s also a chance to create a sense of community. Meeting others who are fighting the same fight helps them realize they are not alone, that they are part of a bigger, albeit often invisible, community, working tirelessly to save the lives of their children or loved ones.
CIRM also has a commitment to supporting the search for treatments for rare diseases. We are funding more than two dozen clinical trials, in addition to many earlier stage research projects, targeting rare conditions.
It’s hard to think of something as being rare when it affects up to 30 million Americans and 300 million people worldwide. But the truth is there are more than 6,000 conditions – those affecting 200,000 people or fewer – that are considered rare.
Today, February 28th, is Rare Disease Day. It’s a day to remind ourselves of the millions of people, and their families, struggling with these diseases. These conditions are also called or orphan diseases because, in many cases, drug companies were not interested in adopting them to develop treatments.
At the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), we have no such reservations. In fact last Friday our governing Board voted to invest almost $12 million to support a clinical trial for IPEX syndrome. IPEX syndrome is a condition where the body can’t control or restrain an immune response, so the person’s immune cells attack their own healthy tissue. This leads to the development of Type 1 diabetes, severe eczema, damage to the small intestines and kidneys and failure to thrive. It’s diagnosed in infancy, most of those affected are boys, and it is often fatal.
Taylor Lookofsky (who has IPEX syndrome) and his father Brian
IPEX is one of two dozen rare diseases that CIRM is funding a clinical trial for. In fact, more than one third of all the projects we fund target a rare disease or condition. Those include:
Some might question the wisdom of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in conditions that affect a relatively small number of patients. But if you see the faces of these patients and get to know their families, as we do, you know that often agencies like CIRM are their only hope.
Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO, says the benefits of one successful approach can often extend far beyond one rare disease.
“Children with IPEX syndrome clearly represent a group of patients with an unmet medical need, and this therapy could make a huge difference in their lives. Success of this treatment in this rare disease presents far-reaching potential to develop treatments for a larger number of patients with a broad array of immune disorders.”
CIRM is proud to fund and spread awareness of rare diseases and invites you to watch this video about how they affect families around the world.
The second Wednesday in October is celebrated as Stem Cell Awareness Day. It’s an event that CIRM has been part of since then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger launched it back in 2008 saying: ”The discoveries being made today in our Golden State will have a great impact on many around the world for generations to come.”
In the past we would have helped coordinate presentations by scientists in schools and participated in public events. COVID of course has changed all that. So, this year, to help mark the occasion we asked some people who have been in the forefront of making Governor Schwarzenegger’s statement come true, to share their thoughts and feelings about the day. Here’s what they had to say.
What do you think is the biggest achievement so far in stem cell research?
Dr. Jan Nolta
Jan Nolta, PhD., Director of the Stem Cell Program at UC Davis School of Medicine, and directs the new Institute for Regenerative Cures. “The work of Don Kohn and his UCLA colleagues and team members throughout the years- developing stem cell gene therapy cures for over 50 children with Bubble baby disease. I was very fortunate to work with Don for the first 15 years of my career and know that development of these cures was guided by his passion to help his patients.
Dr. Clive Svendsen
Clive Svendsen, PhD. Director, Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai: “Without a doubt the discovery of how to make human iPSCs by Shinya Yamanaka and Jamie Thomson.”
When people ask you what kind of impact CIRM and stem cell research has had on your life what do you say?
Ronnie and his parents celebrating his 1st birthday. (Photo courtesy of Pawash Priyank)
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur, parents of Ronnie,who was born with a life-threatening immune disorder but is thriving today thanks to a CIRM-funded clinical trial at UC San Francisco. “This is beyond just a few words and sentences but we will give it a shot. We are living happily today seeing Ronnie explore the world day by day, and this is only because of what CIRM does every day and what Stem cell research has done to humanity. Researchers and scientists come up with innovative ideas almost every day around the globe but unless those ideas are funded or brought to implementation in any manner, they are just in the minds of those researchers and would never be useful for humanity in any manner. CIRM has been that source to bring those ideas to the table, provide facilities and mechanisms to get those actually implemented which eventually makes babies like Ronnie survive and see the world. That’s the impact CIRM has. We have witnessed and heard several good arguments back in India in several forums which could make difference in the world in different sectors of lives but those ideas never come to light because of the lack of organizations like CIRM, lack of interest from people running the government. An organization like CIRM and the interest of the government to fund them with an interest in science and technology actually changes the lives of people when some of those ideas come to see the light of real implementation.
What are your biggest hopes for the future at UC Davis?
Jan Nolta, PhD: “The future of stem cell and gene therapy research is very bright at UC Davis, thanks to CIRM and our outstanding leadership. We currently have 48 clinical trials ongoing in this field, with over 20 in the pipeline, and are developing a new education and technology complex, Aggie Square, next to the Institute for Regenerative Cures, where our program is housed. We are committed to our very diverse patient population throughout the Sacramento region and Northern California, and to expanding and increasing the number of novel therapies that can be brought to all patients who need them.”
What are your biggest hopes for the future at Cedars-Sinai?
Clive Svendsen, PhD: “That young investigators will get CIRM or NIH funding and be leaders in the regenerative medicine field.”
What do you hope is the future for stem cell research?
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur: “We always have felt good about stem cell therapy. For us, a stem cell has transformed our lives completely. The correction of sequencing in the DNA taken out of Ronnie and injecting back in him has given him life. It has given him the immune system to fight infections. Seeing him grow without fear of doing anything, or going anywhere gives us so much happiness every hour. That’s the impact of stem cell research. With right minds continuing to research further in stem cell therapy bounded by certain good processes & laws around (so that misuse of the therapy couldn’t be done) will certainly change the way treatments are done for certain incurable diseases. I certainly see a bright future for stem cell research.”
On a personal note what is the moment that touched you the most in this journey.
Jan Nolta, PhD: “Each day a new patient or their story touches my heart. They are our inspiration for working hard to bring new options to their care through cell and gene therapy.”
Clive Svendsen, PhD: “When I realized we would get the funding to try and treat ALS with stem cells”
How important is it to raise awareness about stem cell research and to educate the next generation about it?
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur: “Implementing stem cell therapy as a curriculum in the educational systems right from the beginning of middle school and higher could prevent false propaganda of it through social media. Awareness among people with accurate articles right from the beginning of their education is really important. This will also encourage the new generation to choose this as a subject in their higher studies and contribute towards more research to bring more solutions for a variety of diseases popping up every day.”
The Stem Cellar 