Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer for Medical & Ethical Standards Yesterday, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) sponsored a public webcast titled: Oversight of Stem Cell Treatments. The Webcast used the example of a recent US District Court of Appeals decision to frame a conversation about the appropriate regulation of stem cell … Continue reading Stem cell society webcast looks at what patients should expect from clinics offering cell therapies

Dr. Raja Kittappa, stem cell researcher and candidate for CongressOf the 541 members of Congress there are plenty of lawyers (173 in the House and Senate) lots of business people (130) and even a decent number of medical professionals (32) but there are only two scientists (one microbiologist and one physicist). That number might increase … Continue reading Is there a doctor in the House? How about a stem cell scientist?

ALS patient and world famous physicist Stephen Hawking talked with CIRM's ALS team at Cedars-Sinai last yearThe stem cell company Neuralstem had earlier reported promising data from part of the patients enrolled in their phase 1 clinical trial for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Now they have published data for … Continue reading Early clinical trial for ALS looks promising, points to ways to do even better

Lauren Miller being sworn in as a member of the stem cell agency BoardThe members of our governing Board do an incredible job helping fund the best science and ensuring that we do everything we can to fulfill our mission. But even though they work hard most people know very little about them, how they … Continue reading Actress, screenwriter and stem cell agency Board member talks about her commitment to Alzheimer’s

2013 CIRM Annual Report cover page At last week’s governing Board meeting, communications director Kevin McCormack unveiled CIRM’s 2013 annual report. Was that a yawn I just heard, dear reader? Are you about to click away from this blog? It’s true that annual reports can be bulky tomes that make better dust collectors than reading … Continue reading The 2013 CIRM Annual Report: a concise, informative and yawn-free update on the state stem cell agency’s progress

Here are some stem cell stories that caught our eye this past week. Some are groundbreaking science, others are of personal interest to us, and still others are just fun. Stem-cell embedded sutures for tendon repair. I love it when a simple idea seems to work. Repairing a torn tendon surgically often results in a … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: tendon repair, disc disease and cancer drugs’ impact on normal stem cells

When a mother says “I’ve never heard my son speak, never heard him tell me he loves me” it’s hard not to feel deeply moved.Those are the words that Jennifer Bidlovski used to describe her son Milo, who has a severe form of autism spectrum disorder, in a video presentation she made to our Board … Continue reading A mother’s plea – find a stem cell therapy to help my son escape autism

Why is this man smiling? Jonathan Thomas, Chair of the CIRM BoardFinding new ways to do the same thing is never easy, particularly when the goal you are aiming for is to try and get the most promising therapies out of the lab and into clinical trials and patients. But yesterday our governing Board found … Continue reading Finding 72 million new ways to hit the same target

A webinar later this morning will address a topic we frequently write about: the power of using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to create laboratory models of diseases. Those models help us understand the cause of the disease and look for ways to treat it. This relatively simple process takes tissue—usually a skin sample or … Continue reading Great chance to learn more about modeling diseases using stem cells

Ask anyone what the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are and the first thing they’ll almost certainly say is loss of memory. It’s not surprising, it’s that fear of losing our memories, losing our sense of self, that makes it such a terrifying disease. But Alzheimer’s has many other symptoms - such as anger, depression, anxiety … Continue reading Stem cells may help ease depression, anxiety and other symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease