Make a mega-minute for spinal cord injury research

Not all minutes of our lives are created equal. The minute (many minutes) I spent as a kid in the basement of our house watching Gilligan’s Island…hmm, not much impact there. But some minutes can potentially have a mega impact. I call these mega-minutes. A seemingly small, even momentary act can have years of impact. …

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Cancer stem cells and iPS cells

cancer stem cells

Yesterday I ran a cancer stem cells meeting here at UC Davis School of Medicine. We had some great speakers and over 150 participants including our outstanding keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Rich, Director of Stem Cell Research at the Cleveland Clinic. One of the ideas percolating through the meeting was that during cancer development, there …

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Why invest in stem cells? Progress, Patients, and Patents

Ideas are the foundation of stem cell research, but funding makes those ideas a reality. We talk a lot about governmental funding of stem cell research through CIRM and NIH. The funding from these agencies is essential and will undoubtedly lead to new treatments and cures, possibly for millions of patients. But there is another …

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Why miRNA iPS cells might be the ticket: an A+ paper

  Since Yamanaka’s discovery of iPS cells first in mouse and then in human cells 5 years ago, both made using viral transduction, a host of new methods to make iPS cells have been reported.  These methods are quite diverse, ranging from transposons, to recombinant proteins, to plasmids, and to RNA.  Often times these new …

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CIRM funds $25 million for Geron trial, $38 million for basic biology

Geron-300x2212

CIRM announced two sets of awards today that both should make major impact including its first clinical trial via Geron and $38 million for 27 basic biology studies. First Clinical Trial. Today CIRM awarded $25 million to support Geron’s FDA-approved clinical trial for spinal cord injury. This is CIRM’s first award to a for-profit company …

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Myth of Perfect Stem Cell: meaning for ACT, Geron and field

in-science-we-trust

  There are a lot of myths in the stem cell field, some even embraced by some stem cell scientists such as the notion that teratoma are always benign. But when we start talking about translating stem cell technology into the clinic, to the bedside, it is especially important to cast aside our myths, no …

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How would the Supreme Court rule on embryonic stem cells?

It seems reasonably likely that in the end, the final say on the embryonic stem cell case one way or another will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. While yesterday brought a victory for science and patients and logic, this was just one battle, not the war. The war that opponents of ES cell …

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