by Amy Adams on June 10, 2011 at 11:40AM | 0 comments
A group of researchers from University College London made a splash this week with their work prodding heart muscle to repair itself. This is big news, given both the number of people who have heart attacks (more than 1 million per year in the US) and the number of stem cell scientists working to regenerate the damage (23 awards worth $46 million from CIRM).
by Amy Adams on April 27, 2011 at 11:15AM | 0 comments
CIRM grantees at The Gladstone Institutes have, over the past few years, been hard at work learning about the origins of heart deformities by studying how stem cells mature into heart tissue.
by Amy Adams on April 22, 2011 at 9:09AM | 0 comments
Alan Trounson is President of CIRM
Since I arrived at CIRM late in 2007 I have maintained a tradition of presenting some of the top science journal papers from the previous month or two at each of our Board meetings. Beginning last month, I decided this would be easier to digest in a written document than in PowerPoint slides amid a harried board meeting. You can see an archive of these periodic stem cell reports on our website.
by Amy Adams on April 11, 2011 at 1:07PM | 0 comments
(Comment: it appears that we already blogged about this study back in February. It's interesting work, though, so this second blog entry gets to remain.)
by Amy Adams on February 16, 2011 at 3:31PM | 3 comments
We've long claimed that one ideal role for iPS cells is modeling disease and screening drugs. In fact, we're so committed to that idea we produced a video about it with CIRM grantee Bruce Conklin at the Gladstone Institutes. Scientific American also has a story on disease model their March issue, available online.
by Amy Adams on February 7, 2011 at 12:44PM | 1 comment
The LA Times has a timely story in the week leading up to Valentine's day summarizing the role of stem cells in mending a broken heart. There's been a lot of talk - and a lot of money invested -- over the past few years pushing bone marrow stem cells as a tool for repairing damage after heart attack.
by Amy Adams on January 18, 2011 at 1:40PM | 0 comments
Nature has a story that features a promising use for stem cells, and also provided a creative outlet for whoever is writing headlines over there: "Cells snag top modelling job".
by Amy Adams on April 26, 2010 at 8:59PM | 0 comments
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have used magnets to guide cardiac stem cells to damaged areas of animal hearts. In a press release, senior author Eduardo Marban said:
by Amy Adams on July 5, 2009 at 12:10PM | 0 comments
Researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease have identified two molecules, called microRNAs, that push early heart cells to mature into the smooth muscle cells that line blood vessels. These same molecules also control when those smooth muscle cells divide to repair damage or in diseases such as cancer or atherosclerosis, which both involve unhealthy blood vessel growth. The two microRNAs, miR-145 and miR-143, are abundant in the primitive heart cells of prenatal mice, leading those cells to differentiate into various mature heart and aorta cells.
