Something wonderful sometimes happens when scientists and the public get together to talk about research. All the jargon, all the technical language falls away and it becomes instead a conversation between the two groups with most at stake, the people in need of a treatment or cure, and the people trying to develop it. Last … Continue reading The road to a cure for HIV/AIDS

The Board meeting is taking place at the Marriott in downtown Oakland. If you would like to hear the discussion there are a number of options: Dial in Information: Dial In Number: (866) 254-5938 Access Code: 365023 WebEx Link: ------------------------------------------------------- To join the event as an attendee ------------------------------------------------------- 1. Go to https://cirm.webex.com/cirm/onstage/g.php?MTID=ee3fd12036ef7028c9f0596c3... 2. Click "Join … Continue reading CIRM Board meeting now underway – key votes expected on new CIRM 2.0 proposals and funding for disease research

Aspirin has been around about as long as anyone has been writing about health. Hippocrates, who was born in 460 BC and is frequently referred to as “The Father of Western Medicine”, used willow bark and leaves – which contain the active ingredients found in aspirin – to help ease pain and fevers. Now a … Continue reading 2,000 year old drug could fight breast cancer

Not so long ago using the words ‘HIV/AIDS’ and ‘cure’ in the same sentence would have been considered inappropriate, even reckless. Although there were many antiretroviral medications that were effective at helping control the virus, there was nothing that was even remotely close to a cure on the horizon. And those therapies that had been … Continue reading Countdown to a cure for HIV/AIDS: California leads the way

Some things never get old. Like watching the sunset over the Grand Canyon. Listening to a baby laugh. Watching the San Francisco Giants win the baseball World Series. Now you can add to that list learning that one of the clinical trials we are funding has just treated their first patient. The latest to join … Continue reading Using your own tumor to fight skin cancer

Adult nerve stem cells fall in the category of allusive creatures. A few scientists still question their existence and most suggest they exist in small numbers only in one or two locations in the adult brain. In any case, all agree they are not particularly good at the normal function of stem cells—making repairs to … Continue reading Fate of our nerve stem cells determined early in embryo so the few we have as adults have very specific roles

It’s hard to get where you want to go without a map. Even if you have a pretty good idea of where you are heading it’s all too easy to get sidetracked or take a wrong turn. Having a good map helps you stay on course. That’s why we are creating our own map, to … Continue reading Help us chart a new direction

One of the fascinating things about stem cell research is how quickly the field is evolving. It seems like every other day a new study is published that highlights a new discovery that makes us stop and think how this new knowledge affects our understanding of stem cells and the diseases we are trying to … Continue reading New stem cell could unlock key to colon cancer

Over the past year or so, teams around the world have reported using stem cells to make increasingly complex portions of the brain. Earlier this month we wrote about a team at Stanford who had grown “organoids” that simulated the brain’s cortex with both nerves and support cells that communicated back and forth with each … Continue reading Neat trick grows two parts of the brain and gets them to communicate

A new study suggests that the relationship between patient advocacy groups and pharmaceutical companies, particularly those carrying out clinical trials, is hitting a bit of a rough patch. And that could have big consequences for both parties. In the past, patients and patient advocacy groups were very much an afterthought when it came to planning … Continue reading Do patient advocacy groups and pharmaceutical companies need marriage counseling?