When you have a life-changing, life-threatening disease, medical research never moves as quickly as you want to find a new treatment. Sometimes, as in the case of Parkinson’s disease, it doesn’t seem to move at all. At our Board meeting last week David Higgins, our Board member and Patient Advocate for Parkinson’s disease, made that … Continue reading Hey, what’s the big idea? CIRM Board is putting up more than $16.4 million to find out
UC San Diego
Stem cell stories that caught our eye: the tale of a tail that grows back and Zika’s devious Trojan Horse
The tale of a tail that grows back (Kevin McCormack) Ask people what they know about geckos and the odds are they’ll tell you geckos have English accents and sell car insurance. Which tells you a lot more about the power of advertising than it does about the level of knowledge about lizards. Which is … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: the tale of a tail that grows back and Zika’s devious Trojan Horse
CIRM stories that caught our eye: UCSD team stops neuromuscular disease in mice, ALS trial enrolls 1st patients and Q&A with CIRM Prez
Ordinarily, we end each week at the Stem Cellar with a few stem cell stories that caught our eye. But, for the past couple of weeks we've been busy churning out stories related to our Month of CIRM blog series, which we hope you've found enlightening. To round out the series, we present this "caught … Continue reading CIRM stories that caught our eye: UCSD team stops neuromuscular disease in mice, ALS trial enrolls 1st patients and Q&A with CIRM Prez
The Alpha Stem Cell Clinics: Innovation for Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatments
During this third week of the Month of CIRM, we are focusing on CIRM’s Infrastructure programs which are all focused on helping to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs. So here is the question of the day: What is the world’s largest network of medical centers dedicated to providing stem cell … Continue reading The Alpha Stem Cell Clinics: Innovation for Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatments
Building California’s stem cell research community, from the ground up
For week three of the Month of CIRM, our topic is infrastructure. What is infrastructure? Read on for a big picture overview and then we’ll fill in the details over the course of the week. When CIRM was created in 2001, our goal was to grow the stem cell research field in California. But to … Continue reading Building California’s stem cell research community, from the ground up
CIRM-Funded Clinical Trials Targeting Cancers
Welcome to the Month of CIRM! As we mentioned in last Thursday’s blog, during the month of October we’ll be looking back at what CIRM has done since the agency was created by the people of California back in 2004. To start things off, we’ll be focusing on CIRM-funded clinical trials this week. Supporting clinical … Continue reading CIRM-Funded Clinical Trials Targeting Cancers
Stem Cell Stories That Caught our Eye: Insights into a healthy brain, targeting mutant cancers and commercializing cell therapies
Here's your weekly roundup of interesting stem cell stories! Partnership for a healthy brain. To differentiate or not to differentiate. That is the question the stem cells in our tissues and organs face. In the case of the brain, neural precursor cells can either remain in a stem cell state or they can differentiate into mature brain … Continue reading Stem Cell Stories That Caught our Eye: Insights into a healthy brain, targeting mutant cancers and commercializing cell therapies
Taming the Zika virus to kill cancer stem cells that drive lethal brain tumor
An out of control flame can be very dangerous, even life-threatening. But when harnessed, that same flame sustains life in the form of warm air, a source of light, and a means to cook. A similar duality holds true for viruses. Once it infects the body, a virus can replicate like wildfire and cause serious … Continue reading Taming the Zika virus to kill cancer stem cells that drive lethal brain tumor
Extra dose of patience needed for spinal cord injury stem cell therapies, rat study suggests
2017 has been an exciting year for Asterias Biotherapeutics’ clinical trial which is testing a stem cell-based therapy for spinal cord injury. We’ve written several stories about patients who have made remarkable recoveries after participating in the trial (here and here). But that doesn’t mean researchers at other companies or institutes who are also investigating spinal … Continue reading Extra dose of patience needed for spinal cord injury stem cell therapies, rat study suggests
Confusing cancer to kill it
Confusion is not a state of mind that we usually seek out. Being bewildered is bad enough when it happens naturally, so why would anyone actively pursue it? But now some researchers are doing just that, using confusion to not just block a deadly blood cancer, but to kill it. Today the CIRM Board approved … Continue reading Confusing cancer to kill it
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