CIRM has indicated that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended that CIRM provide funding for training and research on ethics and regulatory issues. In response to this recommendation and with the perspectives of various “CIRM funded researchers and other experts”, CIRM has responded with a new ethics & regulatory recommendation document. I have read it …
CIRM Ethics & Regulatory Steps: highly responsive to IOM Read More »
A few days ago I had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation with the father of the mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) field, Dr. Arnold Caplan. Dr. Caplan is Professor of Biology, Director Skeletal Research Center at Case Western. He coined the phrase “mesenchymal stem cell” in the late 1980s. I’m going to break the interview …
Insightful interview with Arnold Caplan: Part 1: MSC history, nomenclature, & properties Read More »
Allan Robins of Viacyte (pictured at left–sorry for the fuzzy image) and Paul Simmons of Mesoblast presented this morning at the CIRM Grantee Meeting. Both talks were outstanding. Robins went first. He started by saying how Viacyte had a productive pre-IND meeting with the FDA last year. I believe a target for them is to …
I’m here in San Francisco at the annual CIRM Grantee Meeting. As President Alan Trounson said, this is the best stem cell meeting in the world. We had two speakers tonight to kick off the meeting. Let me tell you my thoughts on each one. First, we had Rainer Storb from The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center …
CIRM Grantee Meeting on Wednesday March 6: fantastic talks by Drs. Storb & High Read More »
Hi everyone, St. Baldrick’s is the top children’s cancer foundation and does amazing work for kids with cancer and their families. Their top fundraising event is a head-shaving program where people make pledges in support of a “shavee” who gets their head shaved in solidarity with kids with cancer who often lose their hair due …
How baldness can cure kid’s cancer: find out & please help! Read More »
In the comments section of a recent post on adult stem cell treatment safety on this blog, the CEO of RNL Europe, Glenn McGee made the philosophical statement that “silence kills science”. It’s an interesting thought and I think to some extent there is truth in it. Openness, data-sharing, dialogue…these are all good things. In …
CIRM Board Members continue to discuss the proposed changes in response to the IOM report (see pic above). There seems to be a slight majority in favor of the proposed changes amongst the board, however several board members are saying they need more time to consider the proposed changes and are uncomfortable voting today. As …
CIRM Board: Will it hold a quick shot vote today on dramatic changes? Read More »
Recently, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a review of the California Stem Cell Agency, CIRM. IOM has now released a quite lengthy report that makes a number of recommendations on various issues. You can also read a short summary here. Unfortunately, I think that many of the IOM recommendations would be harmful to CIRM …
I deal with many patient advocates and that is one of my favorite parts of my job. They are wonderful! However some go above and beyond the call of duty and are model advocates in my opinion. Others do some great things, but also some negative things such as attacking the FDA publicly, which serves …
The model of a patient advocate: what are the key elements of success? Read More »
The University of California (UC), a truly wonderful organization, seems to have made a misstep with its new logo. Below on the left is the old logo and on the right is the new logo. I did a poll here that got a huge response on what people thought the new symbol represented. Just 2% …