city of hope

Richmond-based Sangamo BioSciences has been making a lot of news lately with their gene editing technology. Theirs is the technique being used in CIRM'S HIV Disease Team Award to John Zaia at The City of Hope (summarized in this San Francisco Business Journal story).

In celebration of National Cancer Research Month, our colleagues at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have posted a series of blog entries about cancer research at their institute. The latest installment includes CIRM grantee Robert Wechsler-Reya, who moved to California from Duke University on a CIRM Research Leadership Award.

According to their blog:

Last week the City of Hope announced performing their 10,000th bone marrow transplant since 1976 when they were among the first centers to carry out the risky procedure. They said:

There's a lot of buzz today over a paper in the journal Blood declaring a man who has come to be known as the "Berlin patient" cured of HIV.

Nature Medicine carried a piece Friday by CIRM governing board member Jeff Sheehy, writing about the importance of having a patient advocate voice in biomedical research. Sheehy, who is living with HIV, is a long-time advocate for HIV/AIDS research. He has been on the CIRM board since the beginning in November 2004, and is a vocal participant in CIRM working groups including the group that makes research funding recommendations to the full board (the Grants Working Group), for which he is vice-chair.