Last week the City of Hope announced performing their 10,000th bone marrow transplant since 1976 when they were among the first centers to carry out the risky procedure. They said:City of Hope performed its first successful bone marrow transplant in 1976 on a young college student from Indiana who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. … Continue reading City of Hope performs 10,000th bone marrow transplant, works toward therapy for HIV/AIDS

A story in yesterday’s L.A. Times highlights a point that I think often gets lost in the brouhaha over adult vs. embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells are great, they really are. That’s why we fund a lot of work with blood, brain, fat and other tissue-specific stem cells (you can see a complete list … Continue reading Embryonic stem cells provide limitless source of platelets

A finding by CIRM-funded researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz sounds pretty esoteric, but could be immensely practical for patients facing a grueling Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT).Hematopoietic, or blood-forming, stem cells really have one preferred home. They tend to stick to their niche in the bone marrow, with relatively few circulating in the … Continue reading Blood Stem Cell Finding Could Yield Practical Results for BMT

We’re back after a vacation filled with news about the second ACT embryonic stem cell trial getting FDA approval earlier this week. This one is for macular degeneration. Their first trial, approved by the FDA on November 22, was for Stargardt’s macular degeneration. That brings the total to three trials testing therapies based on embryonic … Continue reading Three embryonic stem cell trials and counting

For the final post of 2010, here are some stem cell highlights from the past year (in no particular order).Three trials based on embryonic stem cells were approved by the FDA: two for forms of vision loss (Stargardt's and macular degeneration) and one for spinal cord injury. (Update on 1/3/11: only two trials received FDA … Continue reading Stem cell research highlights 2010

A pancreatic beta cell. Image by Itkin-Ansari labType 1 diabetes has been a major focus of CIRM funding, including a disease team award to San Diego-based ViaCyte that is expected to bring a therapy to trial within four years.Sanford-Burnham has a great post on their blog about how stem cell therapies for diabetes might work. … Continue reading Stem cell therapies for diabetes: wrap them up

Joanna WysockaStem cell research generally doesn’t make the news unless it’s a story about diseases and cures. We push toward cures every day here at CIRM, but we also fund a lot of the less flashy science that — though it doesn’t make the daily news — we think will one day underlie many of … Continue reading Genetic regions guide embryonic stem cell development

The response to the story about the Berlin patient who was reported cured of  HIV has been incredible, but in this case it’s also a little troubling. What I see in comments on news stories or in tweets is that we have an uphill battle in terms of educating people about stem cells.The stem cells … Continue reading More on the Berlin patient, stem cells, and a cure for HIV

There’s a lot of buzz today over a paper in the journal Blood declaring a man who has come to be known as the “Berlin patient” cured of HIV. The same patient was featured in the New England Journal of Medicine in February 2009. A man infected with HIV needed a bone marrow transplant for … Continue reading Stem cell therapy treats HIV, basis for two CIRM disease teams

On Wednesday the CIRM governing board heard from the external review panel that evaluated CIRM’s activities. (You can read their report and bios here.)One especially interesting portion of the conversation had to do with outreach: how do we let the people of California know about our progress? The panel and several board members mentioned our … Continue reading CIRM looking for a few good ambassadors