Last night, 60 minutes aired a report describing the dangers of what has become known as stem cell tourism – people traveling to other countries to receive unverified “treatments”. You can watch the episode here. In the story, they spoke with Gary Susser, whose son Adam has cerebral palsy. Susser and his wife took Adam … Continue reading 60 Minutes highlights concerns about clinics marketing unverified stem cell treatments

CIRM recently realized a noteworthy milestone with the publication of the 1,000th CIRM-funded paper in early December (here is a link to that paper). This is exciting to me personally because one of my first assignments when I joined CIRM three years ago was to develop (in collaboration with my Science Office colleague Rahul Thakar) … Continue reading CIRM’s 1,000th published paper targets Huntington’s disease

Yesterday CIRM president Alan Trounson took a look back over his science picks from 2011. Today, we're looking ahead to what's in store in 2012. First, anyone interested in participating in the 2012 board meetings should take a look at the governing board meeting schedule. That's available here. We'll be having seven meetings at locations … Continue reading Looking ahead to 2012

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 full report, along with an archive of past reports, is available on the CIRM website.My review this month starts with a couple papers that further cement … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — December’s stem cell research highlights

Forty years ago today President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, allocating $1.5 billion over three years for cancer research.The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has written an excellent piece on their blog about where the field has come since 1971. They write:Forty years later, the War on Cancer can claim countless successes against one of the … Continue reading The war on cancer: 40 years later

Todd Dubnicoff is CIRM’s videographer and video editorAt many CIRM governing board meeting, we set time aside to hear from researchers, clinicians, and patients about the hope of stem cell research in a particular disease area. We film each of these Spotlight on Disease seminars so that the scientists’ progress and the patients’ stories are … Continue reading CIRM Spotlight on Heart Failure: A stem cell trial shows promise for healing injured hearts

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In October the European Court of Justice issued a ruling that inventions created from human embryonic stem cells are not patentable. We wrote a few blogs at the time giving voice to different perspectives on what that ruling might mean. (Those blogs are here and here.)This month, CIRM President Alan Trounson weighed in on the … Continue reading Trounson predicts ripple effects from European court ruling on human embryonic stem cells

The board meeting last week was a day for following up on recommendations. In additional to the Opportunity Funds, which we blogged about earlier in the week, the board also approved a proposal for creating a stem cell bank. Stay with me here. This may not sound as exciting as funding new science or creating … Continue reading Banking iPS and embryonic stem cells for easier access, consistent quality

Geoff Lomax is CIRM's Senior Officer to the Standards Working Group  Is the ability to obtain embryonic stem cell lines hindering research, what factors influence access, and does availability vary by state? These questions have been the subject research and their answers are not entirely clear. A recent publication in Nature by Aaron Levine of … Continue reading Limited access to human embryonic stem cell lines? Survey says…