Serving on the Board of an organization is not exactly glamorous. It often involves a lot of in-depth reading and long, sometimes really long, meetings in windowless rooms at hotels near an airport. Serving on the Board of the stem cell agency can be particularly challenging because of the complex nature of the work we … Continue reading Letter from the heart – thoughts from an autism advocate on leaving the stem cell agency

Planaria like this one can regrow new body partsAt California's stem cell agency we are focused on finding new cures for disease, but sometimes the path to cures is paved with research in animals, like, for example, flatworms.No, seriously. One way of understanding how tissues regenerate is by studying animals whose tissues regenerate naturally. Like … Continue reading The path to stem cell cures paved with… flatworms?

Since Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel prize last year for reprogramming adult cells to an embryonic-like state--so-called iPS cells--it's been hard to keep up with the pace of new research using these cells. For those looking for a summary, The Gladstone Institutes has recently posted a nice, accessible explanation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells … Continue reading iPS cell roundup: testing drugs, studying disease, developing therapies

In the past few days we’ve had several pieces of good news for businesses developing stem cell-based products.The Washington Post today reported that the House Financial Services' Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises held a hearing on “Reducing Barriers to Capital Formation, Part II” today to discuss reducing regulatory burdens and other capital … Continue reading Reducing barriers to capital formation for stem cell companies

Nature Medicine has a good story about our proposed Alpha Clinics. These are the clinics we've proposed funding throughout the state to support stem cell clinical trials. (We've written about them here.)The story quotes CIRM's Natalie DeWitt:Few stem cell therapies, with the exception of hematopoietic stem cells derived from bone marrow or cord blood, are … Continue reading Alpha clinics supporting stem cell clinical trials to be discussed July 25

Loring Leeds told his story of living with HIV/AIDS in our Stories of HopeThe first time you try something new, particularly in the world of science, it is often a time of both optimism and caution. That’s particularly true when it’s the first time a project you have funded is starting a clinical trial, moving … Continue reading Clinical trial testing innovative HIV/AIDS stem cell therapy gets under way

We just concluded our Google Hangout focused on ALS. It was our first Google Hangout and I think everyone here at CIRM is breathing a sigh of relief that all technology glitches took place before the event went live. If people missed watching the event live you can see it in the video below.It was … Continue reading Webcast of CIRM’s #ALS Google hangout now available

Methyl groups added to DNA. Image by Christoph Bock (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) on Wikimedia commonsCIRM-funded researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered a surprising role for vitamin C in how stem cells turn genes on and off. The finding hints at a new role for the vital nutrient in normal embryonic development. Not … Continue reading Vitamin C affects how genes are expressed in stem cells

Nancy Rene's grandson has sickle cell disease. Read her Story of Hope on our website.Combining stem cell therapy with gene therapy looks like it can dramatically improve the safety of a therapy that has cured sickle cell disease in a few patients. Currently physicians reserve that therapy for those children with the most severe symptoms … Continue reading Sickle cell disease therapy hits major milestone on path to clinical trial

Blurring at the center of vision in macular degenerationA preliminary panel of the Japanese Ministry of Health has given the green light for the first clinical tests in humans of a therapy derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to treat macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness. Induced pluripotent stem cells are mature … Continue reading Japan to begin first human tests with induced pluripotent stem cells