Kevin McCormack is blogging this week from the Partnering for Cures meeting in New York. Jesse Dylan and Erik Perakslis speaking about the value of big data at Partnering for CuresIf Big Science was the theme that started the Partnering for Cures conference in New York City –– then Big Data was the mantra that … Continue reading People Power – how patients can use their own data to advance medical research

Members of the Berkeley Student Society for Stem Cell Research walk visitors through a hands on stem cell activityIt does not get much better than the highlights of my past week. First my former hometown team, the Boston Red Sox, won the World Series at Fenway Park, which is down the street from my old … Continue reading San Francisco’s baseball park turned into site where kids see science can be as much fun as a ball game

Stem cell research in San Diego got a $100 million boost today from philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, who is a long-time donor to research in the San Diego area. He is the  namesake behind the Sanford Consortium stem cell research building, to which he donated $30 million. He also donated $70 million to the renamed … Continue reading $100 million donation to speed stem cell research in San Diego

Kevin McCormack is blogging this week from the Partnering for Cures meeting in New York. When you think of scientific research the traditional model is individual researchers or teams of researchers working on their own projects. But Big Science turns that model on its head, getting those individuals to work together in a collective program … Continue reading Big Science is here to stay – pooling knowledge to advance science

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. Stem cells and the girl who never grew up. When Brook Greenberg passed away last week at the age of 20 she looked like a … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: aging, side effects of bone marrow transplant and spinal cord injury

Encapsulated Pro-Islet™ graft containing pancreatic endocrine cells, courtesy of ViacyteAlmost 350 million people across the globe have diabetes. That’s more than the entire population of the United States. Within the United States, there are an estimated 25 million people with diabetes. That’s nearly the entire population of the state of Texas. Finding long-term solutions for … Continue reading Best of the blog: Progress in diabetes research

Last week we wrote about work from the lab of Ricardo Dolmetsch at Stanford University who generated neurons from the skin of people with a form of autism. The goal is to compare those to neurons from people without autism to see where the differences lie and search for drugs to erase those differences.Postdoctoral fellow … Continue reading Photo of the week: neurons reveal possible clues to an autism syndrome

CIRM-supported high school student Amy Thakrar carrying out a stem cell research project in the lab of Joel Rothman lab at UC Santa BarbaraJanet Napolitano became the president of the University of California system on September 30 and yesterday, in her first major speech in the role, she pledged $15 million for training programs. The … Continue reading New University of California President Nepolitano’s support for training mirrors CIRM’s support for training stem cell scientists

On October 1st, CIRM along with the AIDS Research Institute and the Gladstone Institutes hosted an inspiring public forum in San Francisco about the current state of HIV cure research. If you were not among the 100+ in attendance, not to worry, today we posted video recordings of the event on our website or you … Continue reading New Videos: is a HIV cure possible? Public forum discusses the latest on HIV cure research

OK, so I admit we're biased, but we at CIRM have to agree with UC Davis researcher and CIRM grantee Paul Knoepfler, who makes a case on his blog for CIRM's many benefits to the state. New jobs, tax revenues, revolutionary science and all that. "There is no stem cell crystal ball so as with … Continue reading Continue California’s stem cell leadership? Why yes!