Creating a diverse group of future scientists

Students in CIRM's Bridges program showing posters of their work If you have read the headlines lately, you’ll know that the COVID-19 pandemic is having a huge impact on the shipping industry. Container vessels are forced to sit out at anchor for a week or more because there just aren’t enough dock workers to unload … Continue reading Creating a diverse group of future scientists

CIRM Builds Out World Class Team With 5 New hires

Kevin Marks, CIRM's new General Counsel. Photo courtesy Modern-Counsel.com Following the passage of Proposition 14 CIRM has hired five new employees to help increase the team’s ability to respond to new challenges and responsibilities. Prop 14, which was approved by voters in November 2020, gives CIRM $5.5 billion in new funding. Those funds mean CIRM … Continue reading CIRM Builds Out World Class Team With 5 New hires

Three UC’s Join Forces to Launch CRISPR Clinical Trial Targeting Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle shaped red blood cells The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), in collaboration with UC Berkeley (UCB) and UC Los Angeles (UCLA), have been given permission by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to launch a first-in-human clinical trial using CRISPR technology as a gene-editing technique to cure Sickle Cell Disease. This research … Continue reading Three UC’s Join Forces to Launch CRISPR Clinical Trial Targeting Sickle Cell Disease

Women who have changed, and are changing, the world

The problem with trying to write about something like Women’s History Month is where do you start? Even if you narrow it down to women in science the list is vast. Marie Curie I suppose you could always start with Maria Salomea Skłodowska who is better known as Marie Curie. She not only discovered radium … Continue reading Women who have changed, and are changing, the world

Trash talking and creating a stem cell community

Imilce Rodriguez-Fernandez likes to talk trash. No, really, she does. In her case it’s cellular trash, the kind that builds up in our cells and has to be removed to ensure the cells don’t become sick. Imilce was one of several stem cell researchers who took part in a couple of public events over the … Continue reading Trash talking and creating a stem cell community

Timing is everything: could CRISPR gene editing push CIRM to change its rules on funding stem cell research?

Talk about timely. When we decided, several months ago, to hold a Standards Working Group (SWG) meeting to talk about the impact of CRISPR, a tool that is transforming the field of human gene editing, we had no idea that our meeting would fall smack in the midst of a flurry of news stories about … Continue reading Timing is everything: could CRISPR gene editing push CIRM to change its rules on funding stem cell research?

CRISPR cluster: How the media spotlight is focusing on gene editing tool

Getting in-depth stories about science in general, and regenerative medicine in particular, into the mainstream media is becoming increasingly hard these days. So when you get one major media outlet doing a really long, thoughtful piece about a potential game-changing gene-editing technology it’s good news. But when you get three major media outlets, all reporting … Continue reading CRISPR cluster: How the media spotlight is focusing on gene editing tool