We write a lot about scientists testing various types of stem cells as a way of repairing hearts damaged by heart attack (here's one recent post). But the heart is more than just a bunch of muscle tissue, which is what stem cell scientists are usually trying to replace.With that in mind, CIRM grantees at … Continue reading Synthetic patch helps speed heart repair in mice

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group CIRM is creating a stem cell bank designed to make high-quality patient stem cell lines available to scientists who need them (here's more about that banking initiative). Before embarking on this initiative, CIRM’s Medical and Ethical Standards Working Group, along with other funding organizations, … Continue reading Informing patients about tissue donation for stem cell banking

Alzheimer's patients often have neurofibrillary tangles caused by build-up of tau proteins. Image via Wikimedia CommonsOne difficulty in finding new therapies for neurological disease is that scientists can't peer inside a living neuron and watch how its DNA and proteins work--or fail to work. Researchers at Gladstone Institutes recently used stem cell techniques to overcame … Continue reading Understanding Alzheimer’s by watching errant neuron proteins in real-time

Health human T cell | NIAIDEach month CIRM President Alan Trounson gives his perspective on recently published papers he thinks will be valuable in moving the field of stem cell research forward. This month’s report, along with an archive of past reports, is available on the CIRM website.My report this month delves into some pretty … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — July’s stem cell research highlights

Retinal cells like these could lead to new therapies for blindness, one of the diseases targeted by our new Early Translation AwardsYesterday our Governing Board approved funding for 13 new Early Translation Awards worth more than $40 million.These awards fund a stage of research that comes after a scientist comes across a good idea for … Continue reading $40 million for new awards to target cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart disease Huntington’s disease and more

Harvard scientists have grown the cells that line blood vessels, called vascular endothelial cells, from embryonic-like reprogrammed stem cells. (These are the stem cells generated from adult tissues like skin, also called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs).This wouldn't be a big deal--after all the whole point of these cells is that they can form … Continue reading Blood vessels cells go with the flow

Dr. Hanna Mikkola; Photo courtesy UCLAIt’s always nice when someone whose work you have supported is honored for their achievement, so we were naturally delighted to hear that Dr. Hanna Mikkola from UCLA has been named as the winner of the 2013 McCulloch and Till Award.The prestigious award, from the Society for Hematology and Stem … Continue reading Hanna Mikkola wins prestigious award for work in unlocking the secrets of blood stem cells

Last year, our grantees at Gladstone Institutes worked a neat trick: they converted the scar-forming cells of the heart directly into beating heart cells in living mice. (We wrote about that work here.)The cells they converted, also called fibroblasts, are the ones that create scar tissue in the heart after a heart attack. Their work … Continue reading Scar-forming cells in the heart converted directly into beating heart muscle

A novel way of suppressing the immune system could make transplants of human embryonic stem cells a clinical possibility, according to new research by Stanford stem cell scientists.Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) offer a tantalizing prospect for new therapies, but first we have to figure out how to get them past our immune system’s defenses. … Continue reading Bringing embryonic stem cell transplants closer to reality by quieting the immune response

Photo by Keith Kissel: 3D printer making a plastic turtleMost of the time I’m just happy if I can get a document from my computer to print out on the nearby printer, so I’m always amazed to read about people using what are essentially modified versions of these printers to create 3D models of coffee … Continue reading The New York Times and all the knees that are fit to print