Jonathan Moreno is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.In a cleverly written but factually empty blog post, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council tries to justify his organization's opposition to human embryonic stem cell research. This time he avers … Continue reading Peyton Manning and how a political football goes flat

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group  Last week we posted on the initial views of scientists and policy analysts on the 10/18 European Court of Justice decision regarding the patentability of hESC products. The initial views were quite pessimistic with regard to hESC-based therapy development, although James Lawford-Davies did offer a … Continue reading The European embryonic stem cell patent ban: The Other Side of the Coin?

This weekend CIRM hosted an educational event in Bakersfield to update people on the progress being made by CIRM grantees. The event featured a keynote address by board chair Jonathan Thomas plus talks by grantees working on age-related diseases including blindness. Although CIRM holds board meetings throughout California, this is the first time people in … Continue reading Bakersfield residents learn about stem cell progress in aging, macular degeneration

The Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco are set to expand their stem cell research program with a $5 million gift from the Roddenberry Foundation.The independent Institute, which is associated with the University of California, San Francisco, has received $24 million in funding from CIRM (you can see a complete list of those awards here). The … Continue reading CIRM grantees at Gladstone Institute receive $5 million to expand stem cell program

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group The European Court of Justice issued a ruling today that therapeutic products created from human embryonic stem cells are not patentable. A press release cites the court's decision:Court holds that an invention is excluded from patentability where the implementation of the process requires either … Continue reading Experts View European Court Ruling as a Setback for Stem Cell Therapies

CIRM took our high school curriculum on the road last week to the annual meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers in Anaheim at a hotel just down the block from Disneyland. About 800 biology educators attended the meeting. Although I did not venture into the amusement park, I suspect the exhibit hall at … Continue reading CIRM high school curriculum a hit in the land of Disney

A group led by the Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge, working with the Sangamo Biosciences, has shown that it's possible to fix mutations in reprogrammed cells. This work, which was published in Nature, takes two previous advances and combines them into one proof-of-concept.Since 2007 stem cell scientists have been able to reprogram adult … Continue reading Researchers fix mutation in reprogrammed stem cell, create functional liver

These past few days post-World Stem Cell Summit has seen a lot of activity online from patient advocates who attended the meeting. One goal of that meeting is specifically to update the advocates on what's happening in stem cell research and also empower people to speak up about the value of the research. Bernie Siegel, … Continue reading Patient advocates report in on the World Stem Cell Summit

The University of California, Irvine has begun posting video interviews with their stem cell institute director Peter Donovan (You can see all of those videos here.). Of the eight interviews, including ones with former CIRM board chair Robert Klein and leading UCI stem cell researchers, one of the most moving is with Huntington's Disease advocate … Continue reading Video describes life with Huntington’s disease, hopes for stem cell therapies

Stem Cell Awareness Day on Wednesday brought scientists to close to 60 classrooms to deliver lectures on stem cell science and inspired events throughout the world, some of which are ongoing throughout October. (You can see a full list of events here.)The Daily Pilot had a nice story on an event at University of California, … Continue reading Stem Cell Awareness Day introduces high school students to heros