CIRM has funded a $9 million disease team to develop a more effective and safer bone marrow transplant to treat sickle cell disease. The team is led by Dr. Donald Kohn, director of the Human Gene Medicine Program at UCLA, a scientist with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA and a professor of microbiology and pediatrics. Kohn updated the CIRM Governing Board on May 05, 2011 about this team's progress. Kohn was introduced by Bert Lubin, a CIRM Governing Board member and president of the Children's Hospital & Research Center of Oakland and by Robert Klein, chair emeritus of the CIRM Governing Board.

For more information see our sickle cell disease fact sheet