FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Amy Adams
Senior Director of Communications
press@cirm.ca.gov
San Diego, CA, September 25, 2026 – The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) governing board today approved funding of over $195 million to support awards intended to build California’s regenerative medicine research, clinical trial, education, and therapy access programs.
Specifically, the board approved more than $90 million to support 17 programs at institutions across California that will train undergraduate and masters-level students for regenerative medicine careers. Fourteen of these 17 programs are at institutions with existing CIRM-supported Bridges and/or COMPASS programs and will continue to train this student population with proposed programmatic updates. In addition, the board approved $90 million for a 5-year extension of existing Scholars programs to continue training predoctoral, postdoctoral, and clinical fellows following an internal evaluation. The extensions would provide support of up for $5 million for each program, with a possible 18 programs under consideration for those extensions.
In addition, the board approved over $52 million to support 21 discovery projects intended to develop greater understanding of disease processes and therapeutic approaches. These early-stage projects underlie all clinical trials and eventual therapies.
The board also approved more than $44 million to support five clinical trials focused on Type 1 diabetes, lupus, Stargardt disease, forms of blood cancer, and a rare muscular disease.
At the same meeting, the board approved $9 million for a Community Care Center of Excellence in Northern California. That award brings CIRM to 13 centers in a Clinical Network that puts regenerative medicine clinical trials and therapies within driving range of people throughout California.
Community Care Centers of Excellence:
| Application #: | Program Title: | Principal Investigator/Institution: | Amount: |
| INFR8-20450 | Establishing a CIRM Community Care Center of Excellence in Northern California | S. Mazj — Enloe Health | $9,000,000 |
Education & Research Training Awards:
| Application #: | Program Title: | Principal Investigator/Institution: | Amount: |
| EDUC8-20264 | Building the Regenerative Medicine Workforce through Stem Cell Internships in Laboratory-based Learning (SCILL) | B. Gillo-Hill — San Jose State University Research Foundation | $5,857,000 |
| EDUC8-20269 | From Pluripotent Students to Stem Cell Scholars | D. Nickerson — California State University, San Bernadino | $6,918,000 |
| EDUC8-20270 | Developing a Skilled and Diverse Master’s-Level Workforce in Regenerative Medicine | K. Mulligan — California State University, Sacramento | $3,868,800 |
| EDUC8-20272 | Bridges to Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine | P. Eversole-Cire — Pasadena City College | $4,588,500 |
| EDUC8-20284 | Advancing Diverse Stem Cell Scholars Through Integrated Research and Career Development | S. Carpenter — University of California, Santa Cruz | $2,808,072 |
| EDUC8-20287 | Stem Cell Dual Path Training Program | L. Chen — San Francisco State University | $6,490,600 |
| EDUC8-20295 | Preparing undergraduate and master’s students for the regenerative medicine industry | T. Cardinal — California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo | $6,446,520 |
| EDUC8-20297 | Training In Stem cell Science for Undergraduate Excellence (TISSUE) | K. McCloskey — University of California, Merced | $2,809,600 |
| EDUC8-20299 | CIRM Bridges Stem Cell Research and Biotechnology Training Program | D. Fraser — California State University, Long Beach | $4,192,500 |
| EDUC8-20303 | Pathways to Regenerative Medicine Training Program | A. Sprowles — Humboldt State Foundation | $5,776,082 |
| EDUC8-20314 | Building an Inclusive Regenerative Medicine Workforce: A Dual-Path EDUC8 Training Program in Biomedical Sciences | J. Artaza — Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science | $6,917,500 |
| EDUC8-20315 | Undergraduate Talent Development through Stem Cell Training Programs at CSU Fullerton | N. Patel — California State University, Fullerton | $6,918,000 |
| EDUC8-20324 | Collaborative Pipeline to Workforce Development Training Program | B. Mothé — California State University, San Marcos | $5,928,000 |
| EDUC8-20328 | EPIC-IDEA: Expanded Pathways in Cell-Based Manufacturing to Increase Diversity, Equity, and Advancement | J. DeKloe — Solano Community College | $6,552,640 |
| EDUC8-20332 | Preparing Undergraduates for Careers in California’s Regenerative Medicine Workforce | S. Georgia — University of Southern California | $3,237,000 |
| EDUC8-20370 | Building Bridges to Regenerative Medicine: Certificate Training, Mentoring, and Internship Pathways for a Diverse Translational Workforce | L. Martin — Keck Graduate Institute | $4,313,955 |
| EDUC8-20435 | Hands-On Program for Excellence in Cell Therapy Manufacturing Sciences (HOPE-CTMS) | M. Fino — MiraCosta College | $6,918,000 |
Discovery Stage Research:
| Application #: | Program Title: | Principal Investigator/Institution: | Amount: |
| DISC5-19989 | Advancing next-generation models for the development of thymoregenerative medicines | A. Parent — University of California, San Francisco | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-20068 | Decoding regulatory sequence function during human brain organoid development | S. Heinz — University of California, San Diego | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-20026 | Leveraging iPSCs and a deep learning-based virtual cell model to identify therapeutic targets for ALS | J. Ichida — University of Southern California | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-20172 | Phoenix WNTears: A Platform for Selectivity Expanding Adult Stem Cell Potency and Plasticity | S. Gur-Cohen — University of California, San Diego | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19908 | Generating biological age in a stem cell-based complex disease model of osteoarthritis | A. Stahl — University of California, Berkeley | $2,499,999 |
| DISC5-19839 | Uncovering disease and cell-type-specific constraints on therapeutic delivery using a human CNS tissue discovery platform | N. Singhal — University of California, San Francisco | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-20195 | Decoding Human Pancreatic Progenitor Biology to Enable Next-Generation Stem Cell-based Therapies for Type 1 Diabetes | J. Sneddon — University of California, San Francisco | $2,499,875 |
| DISC5-20158 | Engineering Nephron Connectivity in Human Kidney Tissue Using Synthetic Signaling Centers | L. Morsut — University of Southern California | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19638 | Systematic cell-type-resolved single-base resolution functional characterization of neurodevelopmental risk genes | Y. Shen — University of California, San Francisco | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19747 | Leveraging lessons from normal development to overcome barriers to efficient transplantation of stem cell derived cortical neurons. | T. Nowakowski — University of California, San Francisco | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19949 | Neurovascular control of follicle growth using stem cell derived ovary assembloids | D. Laird — University of California, San Francisco | $2,499,997 |
| DISC5-19810 | Impact of Sex-Differences on Intestinal Stem Cell Function in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease | J. Bayrer — University of California, San Francisco | $2,499,999 |
| DISC5-19686 | Allelic Expression States as Determinants of Neurodevelopmental Disorder Risk | A. Muotri — University of California, San Diego | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-20061 | Characterizing how neurons from human stem cell transplants integrate into spinal neural circuits following injury | S. Pfaff — Salk Institute | $2,499,999 |
| DISC5-19811 | Mapping Human Retinal Niches to Improve Stem-Cell Therapy for Geographic Atrophy | A. Barzelay Wollman — University of California, Los Angeles | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19893 | Revealing the Mechanistic Architecture Governing CAR-T Cell Potency and Failure at Single-Cell Resolution | M. Abou-el-Enein — University of Southern California | $2,499,738 |
| DISC5-19870 | Foundational Mapping of Splicing-Derived Neoantigen Recognition in Human Sarcoma Using Stem Cell-Enabled Immune Platforms | K. Kim — University of California, Los Angeles | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19807 | A precision organoid platform to investigate APOE4 dependent cerebrovascular impairments | L. Wang — University of Southern California | $2,500,000 |
| DISC5-19957 | Spatiotemporal Control of Human Primordial Germ Cell Fate by the Embryonic Niche | M. Zernicka-Goetz — California Institute of Technology (CalTech) | $2,425,796 |
| DISC5-19950 | Temporal AI models for programming therapeutic cell state transitions | C. Theodoris — Gladstone Institutes | $2,499,998 |
| DISC5-19900 | Validating Safety and Efficacy of Extremeophile Stress Tolerance Transgenes in Stem Cells | J. Morgan — University of California, Riverside | $2,499,999 |
Clinical Stage Research:
| Application #: | Program Title: | Principal Investigator/Institution: | Amount: |
| CLIN2-20416 | A Phase 1 study of an engineered Treg cell therapy in adults with recently diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes | M. Bach — GentiBio | $7,766,382 |
| CLIN2-20392 | First-in-human trial for a novel epigenetic therapy for FSHD targeting D4Z4 epigenome | W. Miller — Epicrispr Biotechnologies, Inc. | $8,000,000 |
| CLIN2-20291 | Phase 2 Open-Label Single-Arm Trial in Participants With Refractory Moderate-to-Severe SLE With Lupus Nephritis | V. Sandhu — Fate Therapeutics | $15,000,000 |
| CLIN2-20409 | An RNA Splicing and Base Editing Inhibitor to Target Cancer Stem Cells in Refractory Myeloid Malignancies | C. Scribner — Aspera Biomedicines, Inc. | $5,546,253 |
| CLIN2-20350 | Optogenetic Therapy for Treatment of Stargardt Disease | P. Bresge — Ray Therapeutics, Inc. | $7,935,162 |
About the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is a state agency created by California voters to accelerate stem cell and gene therapies for people with unmet medical needs. Since 2004, Californians have entrusted CIRM with $8.5 billion to accelerate promising discoveries through clinical trials, train a regenerative medicine workforce, strengthen the state’s biotechnology economy, and expand access to transformative therapies. Today, CIRM is pioneering new models of therapy development and accelerating medical breakthroughs that change lives — in California and around the world. For more information, visit www.cirm.ca.gov.