Heart muscle directly reprogrammed from another cell type | Image from Deepak Srivastava at the Gladstone InstitutesHeart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. About 600,000 people die of heart disease every year – that’s about one in four deaths. On this blog, we’ve often written about how our grantees are … Continue reading Best of the blog: progress in heart disease research

We love stem cells because they can turn into many things. In the case of seventeen-year-old Joshua Meier in Teaneck, New Jersey, he turned them into a $3,000 prize as a national finalist in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Meier spent three years studying how stem cells age, developing techniques to slow … Continue reading Stem cell study yielding cancer insights turns high school senior into a finalist in national science fair

This Thursday we're holding a webinar with the FDA and scientists focusing on overcoming challenges in moving stem cell therapies for Parkinson's disease into the clinic. The target audience for this webinar is the scientists themselves but we welcome participants who are interested in hearing more about the challenges faces by these researchers. There's information … Continue reading Parkinson’s disease webinar focuses on developing therapies

Over the weekend Bradley Fikes at the San Diego Union Tribune wrote a good overview about CIRM's progress in the nine years since November 2004, when voters first approved Proposition 71 and created the agency.He summed up our current funding status (these numbers are also on the funding commitments page of our website):About $1.87 billion … Continue reading San Diego Union Tribune on CIRM’s progress to-date

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.Growing muscle in a dish. A team at Children’s Hospital, Boston and Harvard have used reprogrammed iPS type stem cells to grow muscle in a lab … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: enhanced healing, engineered tissues and bigger muscles

“Many concepts I learned as a student are no longer true today or have drastically changed”, so said my molecular biology professor when I was an undergrad. If I met up with my prof again today I’d say, “ain’t that the truth”. A perfect example of the ever-changing nature of scientific knowledge is a report … Continue reading Comparison of DNA Between Single Brain Cells Reveals Surprising Variation, A Stem Cell Study Finds

Our grantee Songtao Shi at the University of Southern California has discovered how stem cells in the jaw give rise to growths that enlarge the jaw and often require major surgery to remove. These growths are called ossifying fibromas.Like so many early stage discoveries, his work doesn't so far treat the growths, but it does show … Continue reading Stem cells in the jaw at the heart of debilitating bony growths

Geoff Lomax, CIRM's Senior Officer for Medical & Ethical Standards, is blogging from this week's Advancing Ethical Research Conference 2013. Dr. Atul Gawande speaking at the Advancing Ethical Research Conference.Two outstanding speakers, Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. George Demetri, kicked off the meeting, both discussing themes of systems science to advance new therapies and treatments for patients. … Continue reading Revolutionary Therapies: It Takes a System

Each 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.Scientists in Cincinnati have found how the stem cells that create the blood … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — October’s stem cell research highlights

Kevin McCormack is blogging this week from the Partnering for Cures meeting in New York.Moderator Josh Sommer and panelists Jessica Richmond and Geoffrey Ling discussed the role of patients can play in driving new curesPatients have always been at the heart of the work we do at the stem cell agency. It’s only natural; they … Continue reading Patient power – the democratization of science