The online life sciences news site Mendelspod recently posted a piece titled: UCSC Up To More than Bioinformatics. Well, we knew that of course. CIRM has awarded researchers there more than $28 million in grants, including $7 million toward their new stem cell research building. One of those awards funds a very cool project adapting … Continue reading UCSC stem cell scientists examine aging

The National Institutes of Health has released a fact sheet about the effects of sequestration on the agency. The 5 percent cut will result in a loss of $1.55 billion during the 2013 fiscal year.They write:Medical breakthroughs do not happen overnight. In almost all instances, breakthrough discoveries result from years of incremental research to understand … Continue reading NIH sequestration fact sheet: “delaying progress in medical breakthroughs”

The National Institutes of Health has released a fact sheet about the effects of sequestration on the agency. The 5 percent cut will result in a loss of $1.55 billion during the 2013 fiscal year.They write:Medical breakthroughs do not happen overnight. In almost all instances, breakthrough discoveries result from years of incremental research to understand … Continue reading NIH sequestration fact sheet: "delaying progress in medical breakthroughs"

Nature ran an interesting story today on access to the new stem cell lines created last month through cloning. The technique involves removing the DNA from an egg, inserting the DNA from an adult cell (like skin or blood), then triggering the egg to start dividing. The end result is a 4-5 day old embryo … Continue reading Embryonic stem cell lines through cloning valuable, but access is limited

The online life sciences news site Mendelspod recently interviewed our grantee Lawrence Goldstein from the University of California, San Diego about his stem cell research into Alzheimer's disease and ALS (Lou Gehrhig's disease). Having interviewed Goldstein a number of times myself, it's not a surprise to me that he ended up having things to say … Continue reading Lawrence Goldstein discusses Alzheimer’s & ALS research, need for more funding

This is a case of a rising tide lifting at least a few extra boats. It turns out a successful heart disease project we fund at Cedars-Sinai might also benefit kids with muscular dystrophy. Eduardo Marban has been working on a disease team project to develop a way of using the heart's own stem cells … Continue reading Stem cell project for heart disease might help those with muscular dystrophy

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.My report this month opens with a journal article that earns that rarely … Continue reading Alan Trounson: embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos could improve iPS cells

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.Role of blood vessels in diabetes. I have been a skeptic of the few reports that have come out suggesting mesenchymal stem cells, the second type … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: diabetes, Down Syndrome and the long road to gene therapy

Early this year our Governing Board approved funding for nine awards to create a stem cell bank to be located at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging just north of San Francisco (here's our press release). The San Francisco Chronicle’s Erin Allday recently wrote about the bank, which will eventually contain 9,000 stem cell … Continue reading California stem cell bank will save time, speed research

The axolotl's ability to regrow limbs make it widely studied by scientists hoping to understand regeneration and perhaps mimic the process for healing injuries in people. (Photo: wikimedia commons)Yes, it’s true; the axolotl is an oddly adorable salamander but it is its ability to regrow complex structures like the legs, tail, retina and spinal cord … Continue reading Does the immune system hold the key to re-growing limbs? Ask the axolotl