September 2009 Digest

September 30, 2009

September Digest

Throughout the past year CIRM has ramped up efforts to educate our supporters about stem cell research. We began publishing a blog containing short descriptions of the most exciting research by our grantees. We created a Stem Cell Basics primer about stem cell research. We created a YouTube site with videos explaining stem cell research and describing news from our grantees. We posted stem cell images on a Flickr site. We launched a Facebook page to keep fans up-to-date on CIRM's progress.

It's a lot to follow. To keep up with all this activity we will now be sending a monthly roundup of news from CIRM. We hope this helps everyone stay up-to-speed during this exciting time in stem cell research.

Stem Cell Awareness Day

On September 23rd, CIRM celebrated the second annual Stem Cell Awareness Day, reaching almost 5,000 high school students throughout California with talks by CIRM grantees. To commemorate the day, three governors and five mayors issued proclamations of Stem Cell Awareness Day.

New Collaborations

In the past month CIRM formed collaborations with the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), which administers the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund (MSCRF).

“One of CIRM’s primary goals is to accelerate the field of stem cell research as a whole. In some instances we can do this more effectively through collaborations that involve the best scientific endeavors, regardless of geography,” said Alan Trounson, CIRM President.

With these two recent announcements, CIRM now has seven collaborations including the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium of Canada, the State of Victoria in Australia, the JST in Japan, the MICINN in Spain and the MRC in the United Kingdom.

(Image: Alan Trounson, CIRM President; Robert Klein, Chair of the CIRM Governing Board; Meyer Krahmer, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research)

New Publications

You can keep up with publications by CIRM grantees at our stem cell blog, where we publish summaries of some of the most notable advances by our grantees.

New Videos

CIRM released a new video about progress toward stem cell-based therapies for Parkinson's disease. Thanks to the Parkinson's Institute and to Frank Kellers who spoke with CIRM about his experience living with the disease.